On the second day of HIMSS 2022, the halls were open and in full swing. It was good to see a vibrant community of people all smiling and looking happy. It was hard to walk around and miss the delighted voices, comments, and pictures being taken of people seeing each other in person for the first time in a couple of years.
Spread through the convention was a wide range of sessions taking place in various rooms, and all seemed to have plenty of seats. There was a range of special focus groups and sessions, and breakfast on the Democratizing Healthcare with AI that was well attended with a lot of discussion taking place around the bias of data and the models built and how to counteract this
I spent time with Krishna Kurapati, founder and CEO at QliqSOFT who is looking to scale automated virtual care by enabling bots that can be built by any member of the team. They were running a ‘Build-a-Bot’ competition and had a number of sessions on their booth with a variety of speakers.
I was fortunate to avoid the long lines that developed for registration and badge pick up and it left me wondering if this was a symptom of the extra steps and complexity that the pandemic restrictions have created.
Walking the exhibitor floor there was little to no masking – there was one exception with one booth that appeared to have a corporate mandate for all its employees to wear masks but otherwise few to be seen anywhere.
The usual collection of booth attractions with magicians, presenters, and demonstrations. By the end of the day, it almost felt as if we had never paused the conference circuit experience as the mass exodus of attendees headed out to International Drive and beyond for the after-conference party scene. Here’s hoping that these renewed connections and newfound connections will drive the disruption we are all seeking.
