Weekly roundup: HIMSS in hindsight

Now that HIMSS13 has come to an end and we’ve had some time to reflect, my reaction is still “wow.” New Orleans was so busy! The keynote speakers made bold statements, the educational sessions offered a wide range of insights and information and the exhibit hall was…big. From ICD-10 and analytics to Meaningful Use and patient engagement, there were many, many lively discussions.

“Healthcare is broken not just when it comes to the cost but in so many other ways,” said National Coordinator of Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM. More important than errors of commission are errors of emission—“the errors we never see. Surgeons save lives, but we don’t know whose lives we’re taking when we only control blood pressure for half of the people who need it.”

Data and information can make the invisible visible. “And then we can do something about it. We can do quality improvement not just retrospective accounting.”

Payment rules make a big difference too, said Mostashari. He cited the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Acting Adminstrator Marilyn Tavenner who said without that new payment and delivery models cannot succeed. “Fee for service isn’t dead yet, but there are a lot of plans for its demise.”

He acknowledged that Meaningful Use is not easy, and meaningful users are earning their incentive pay. Looking ahead to penalties for not meeting Meaningful Use, he said “my goal is for nobody to be penalized. We want everybody to succeed on this.”

Don’t tell me healthcare can’t change, he said. “It can. A lot of what seems to be resistance that is just uncertainty.”

Mostashari said he spent time in the HIMSS13 exhibition hall and saw many claims regarding scalability. “You know what scales? Hard work, determination, perseverance. Grit scales.”

Meanwhile, Eric J. Topol, MD, proclaimed a Medical Gutenberg era. The importance of patient engagement will lead these efforts, as it is deemed “the blockbuster drug of the century,” and can lead to better healthcare outcomes and possibly lower costs, according to Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and chief academic officer for Scripps Health in La Jolla, Calif.

“The digital revolution is irreversibly transforming our worlds through its acceleration of innovation and drive toward productivity, but it hasn’t really impacted medicine—so far,” said Topol. However, smartphones are spreading faster than any technology in history, and that technology emerged in only 2001 with the iPhone. “Smartphones have collectively changed our lives,” leading to a condition that Topol coined "Homo distractus" because the average attention span went from 12 minutes in 1998 to five minutes in 2008.

However, healthcare will not be immune from the digital revolution for long. For instance, online social health communities, such as PatientsLikeMe, MyBCTeam and FacetoFace, are starting to emerge and have prominence. “People are willing to share their healthcare experiences with virtual peers on these sites, whom they’ve never met, perhaps more than their doctors,” he said.

I hope your HIMSS13 experience was good—informative, valuable and worthwhile. Please share your experience.

Beth Walsh, editor

bwalsh@trimedmedia.com