HIMSS14, Wednesday: Five things to know today

The halls are buzzing, educational sessions are lively and feet and backs are aching. Just another day at HIMSS14!

1. This event is huge. Total registration numbers for HIMSS14 as of Wednesday morning: 37,537 (compared to 34,347 on the same day last year). There are 1233 exhibiting vendors.

2. Social media is alive and well. 21,000 Tweets were sent on Monday (compared to 10,000 Tweets on Monday of the 2013 conference).  

3. ONC wants to help. During the office’s Town Hall meeting yesterday, they announced the new eHealth University, “a one-stop shop to access databases and information providers can use to help them implement ehealth initiatives,” said Robert Tagalicod, director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of eHealth Standards and Services. Tagalicod specifically referred to Meaningful Use (MU) requirements and the looming ICD-10 implementation date. “We truly know the demands [on providers],” he said. “We will be developing resources throughout the year to help providers meet these milestones.”

4. Organizations need to prepare for ICD-10. An analysis conducted at Rice Memorial Hospital, a 136-bed hospital in Minnesota, found coding mistakes and insufficient documentation under its current system. The analysis also identified potential financial gains and losses from the shift from ICD-9 to ICD-10, and found 14 DRGs with net negative reimbursement and 12 DRGs with net positive reimbursement.

5. CDS is more than alerts. It’s time to “think outside the alert box,” according to Jerome A. Osheroff, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania. “It takes a lot more to improve outcomes than popping up an alert in front of somebody’s face,” said  in Philadelphia. “In fact, a lot of the challenges that we face in clinical decision support now result from the fact that this is how we’ve done clinical decision support in the past.”