By Jim Tate, EMR Advocate
MACRA/MIPS Subject Matter Expert
Twitter: @jimtate, eMail: jimtate@emradvocate.com
Host of The Tate Chronicles – #TateDispatches
HIMSS19, the annual global conference with over 40,000 attendees, is just a scant two weeks away in Orlando. Since I began working in healthcare information technology some 15 years ago this is the only event I never miss. It is simply too important to not attend. It is easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of opportunities for education and networking. The HIMSS annual conference is a mix of the Burning Man Festival and a graduate degree in astrophysics. Best to just focus on several main areas of interest while leaving ample time to explore unexpected opportunities when they arise.
This year there are two main areas I’ll be tracking:
Precision Medicine:
Precision Medicine is the logical step beyond personalized medicine. Wikipedia defines it as “a medical model that proposes the customization of healthcare, with medical decisions, treatments, practices, or products being tailored to the individual patient. In this model, diagnostic testing is often employed for selecting appropriate and optimal therapies based on the context of a patient’s genetic content or other molecular or cellular analysis.” With recent developments in pharmacogenomics and genetic testing this area is expanding rapidly. HIMSS will be offering everything related to this field from legal aspects to access to predictive models. Go here to see the listing of events focused on Precision Medicine. There is even a day long Precision Medicine Summit on Monday.
Blockchain and Healthcare:
2019 is starting to look like the year that valid blockchain use cases will start to emerge in healthcare. HIMSS has put together a strong series of educational events to explore the promise and best practices of this technology. Here is the full list of blockchain events at HIMSS19. On Monday there will be a day long event titled Blockchain Symposium: Chain Reaction: How Blockchain Technology Brings Value to Healthcare. There will be a Blockchain Forum on Wednesday from 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM in which I will be one of the presenters.
I welcome the opportuntiy to connect at HIMSS19. Feel free to contact me here. See your in Orlando.