HIMSS 13 or Bust!

Today I’m en route to New Orleans for this year’s annual HIMSS conference. Fortunately, these conferences are placed just far enough apart for me to forget the cruelty bestowed upon by valuable walking appendages while navigating the vast HIMSS grounds over and over and over again. My FitBit is fully charged for the occasion.

There’s lots to look forward to this year. As I stated in the HL7 blog post on the topic, “HIMSS is the geek fuel I use to power me throughout the year.” Allow me to explain. Like most people I am often asked what I do for a living. I love my job, and I answer with full enthusiasm only to find many a blank stare turned towards me when I talk about interoperability, gamification, and data models that actually save lives. However, at HIMSS its like arriving in a land with reassuring knowing glances. It is in this environment where amazing learning can take place. Last year some of my favorite lessons where on participatory healthcare from Regina Holliday and Keith Boone giving connected data a personal meaning with the inclusion of human story. This learning didn’t take place in formal sessions or a fancy dinner. They happen in this place where information can be digested throughly by this community of smart minds and shared to all willing to listen. Let’s just say the HIMSS conference last year was a great time to have Meaningful Use Stage 2 released where the understanding could be crowdsourced by thousands within a small geographic vicinity.

So, what am I looking forward to the most at HIMSS? Learning. And where to I get the most learning done? Social! If you care to join me, then here is a list of all of the great ways to connect at HIMSS this year:

Sunday, March 3

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Opening Reception
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Great Hall A
Free to all registered conference attendees

Monday, March 4

Good UX Means Good Business

In a world where technology is rapidly advancing and user expectations are rising, it’s no longer enough to have an average user experience; to delight your users and surpass your competition you must strive for the exceptional.

Get the Guide

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. @mHIMSS TweetUp
mHIMSS Booth, Lobby E (Directly Across from HIMSS Central)
No RSVP Required

4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Interoperability Showcase TweetUp “Gimme my DaM data”
Interoperability Showcase
RSVP here

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. SearchHealthIT Tweet n Meet
Whiskey Blue at the W Hotel, 333 Poydras Street
http://tweetnmeet.eventbrite.com/ or http://tweetvite.com/event/tweetnmeet

Tuesday, March 5

11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. #HITsm Live Tweetchat
Lobby G, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center , Social Media Center
http://www.himssconference.org/Education/EventDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=2347

6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. New Media Meetup
Mulate’s – 201 Julia St., New Orleans, LA
http://www.emrandhipaa.com/himss-2013-new-media-meetup-registration/

Wednesday, March 6

11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Patient Engagement Tweet-Up: Transforming the Healthcare Experience
Lobby G, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center , Social Media Center; #EPatient on Twitter

During this tweet-up, Martin Sizemore (@MartinSizemore), Director of Healthcare Strategy at IT consulting firm, Perficient, Inc. (@Perficient_HC), will moderate a discussion on how providers are designing secure and engaging patient portals for access to records, and how the world of social media – including Facebook and Twitter – is shaping patient expectations around caregiver interaction.