Everyone has predictions for the future. With so much going on in the health IT arena, there are some certainties: more change, more innovation.

In this month’s cover story, several health IT thought leaders shared their thoughts on which issues will top their priority lists this year. While federal mandates such as Meaningful Use and the transition to ICD-10 certainly factor in, there is room for innovation in patient care, reimbursement, data analytics and more.

The increasing rate of EHR adoption highlights issues such as privacy and security and how to best use all the data now captured electronically. For example, better patient matching capabilities are needed for secure information exchange and care coordination. And, more sophisticated clinical decision support is needed to better harness all the data being digitally collected, says John Mattison, MD, CMIO of Kaiser Permanente in southern California.

Meaningful Use calls for more patient engagement and Peter Basch, MD, medical director of ambulatory EHR and health IT policy for MedStar Health based in Columbia, Md., predicts an increase in functionality of patient portals and patient engagement-related applications.
Learn more about these predictions here.

Speaking of innovation, a number of mobile apps are raising the bar when it comes to medication adherence. Pilot projects are studying app effectiveness and ability to tailor to individual patients and to increase their engagement in their healthcare. See Laura Pedulli’s article here.

Leadership is an ongoing struggle for most industries and healthcare offers some unique challenges to effective leadership development. It is one of the only industries in which change is legislated, for example. Developing future leaders is not an easy task but well worth the effort, say our experts. Learn more.

We also have a look at the headlining speakers at the annual HIMSS conference in Orlando, as well as new attractions such as an updated and expanded Interoperability Showcase, Beacon Nation Live and the Federal Health IT Pavilion. Hopefully, you will be in Orlando in person to experience all the networking, innovation and learning opportunities. Whether in person or holding down the fort, please check out our live conference coverage at clinical-innovation.com/himss and subscribe to our daily conference newsletter.