HIMSS21 & SHIEC21 – Top trends and insights

The COVID-19 pandemic has been on the top of news feed for the last 18 months and has colored our views on education, finance, civil rights and of course healthcare. It has driven innovation within the HIT sector and unfortunately (or fortunately) has exposed gaps in process, care, and data. We say ‘fortunately’ because the pandemic turned the spotlight on the gaps in care and the community has worked together to bridge or close those healthcare gaps.  

HIMSS21 had a much different ‘feel’ this year with the number of exhibitors and participants being lower than years past. The decrease in number was not necessarily a negative. As a matter of fact, we experienced less traffic, wide open spaces, focused conversations, and reduced stress to get from one meeting to another. 

Top trends and insights from HIMSS we saw are following: 

Telehealth – with the impact and relevance during the pandemic and the outlook as the pandemic continues 

Interoperability – regarding the connected care and information availability for patients, as well as the learnings of how important interoperability is to use meaningful data to impact healthcare for the better 

SHIEC has been impactful as well. Being a smaller event with MANY returning exhibitors and attendees it was also like a family reunion. Our HIE community is amazing, and you could see the respect and admiration of the mission and accomplishments of brother/sister HIEs. They shared experiences, triumphs, and learnings from challenges. Together, they collaborated to grow.   

The top insights and future trends from SHIEC were incorporating the following to build a more robust, sustainable HIE: 

Data Quality – having robust data and a level of data quality to be used for research, resale of data, or value of care 

Sensitive Data – regarding filtering out or what to share and when to share it for sensitive data such as HIV, addiction, etc. 

Social Determinants of Health – the importance of access to care for those that have met different social determinants of health and how to connect those people with the correct resources and programs 

Immunization registries, social determinants of health, interoperability, and standards peppered almost every conversation and presentation at both events. 

A few words and phrases from National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Mickey Tripathi that resonated with us:  

• data-driven look 
• robust data 
• gaps in data 
• analysis 
• actionable