We asked several HIT vendor executives the following question:
In addition to ARRA-related items, what will be some of the hot topics at HIMSS this year?
I believe it will be clear that connected healthcare has moved to the forefront of C-level executive’s strategies We are hearing executives, with and without IT backgrounds, say that connecting communities is a critical endeavor to provide better care, drive financial performance, and in some cases, to keep physicians from retiring when the Medicare reductions hit. When you combine these challenges with shifts in reimbursement, including reimbursement for proactive medicine through the medical home, you start to see leaders reaching out beyond their walls, creating “care communities” centered on referral patterns.Interestingly, once brick and mortar stops constraining healthcare, old models start to break. When you decide to work with the community, you have little choice but to leave the constructs of a single-vendor solution. A prime example is our partner and investor UPMC, whose Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh recently achieved HIMSS Stage-7 certification – the first of its kind for a multi-vendor environment. With a platform to aggregate and harmonize the information from an array of disparate systems , UPMC has been able to create a comprehensive “patient chart” - a key breakthrough for both clinicians and organizations seeking to leverage their existing investments.
--Peter McClennen, President for North America, dbMotion
The complete article is available on-line at HISTalk Practice.