Day 3 of HIMSS and there appears no diminishing of traffic and people although I did catch a few people checking out of my hotel as I left.
It is hard to recall precisely the distances involved in the exhibit hall but this year has fewer vendors over a shorter length and catching up with the booths away from the main thoroughfare was much easier this year
As if emblematic of healthcare in general as I tried to assess interest based on crowds and general activity, two critical areas had been placed at the ends of the exhibit hall
The Cyber Command Center for security is at the far end and while it was busy at times the position places this out of the general conference traffic. The same is true of interoperability placed at the other end and suffering the same problem
Right in the middle of the exhibit hall was the innovation area that was packed with people anytime I walked through.
We really do need that level of focus on Cybersecurity and Interoperability in healthcare. Perhaps in the future, we could find a way to bring these centers of focus into the middle of the show
Remote Patient Monitoring
The home health hub and technology to support it was evident across a lot fo the booths with companies offering support for infrastructure and connecting patients and clinicians – as Troy Yoder of Cisco put it
“Cisco is the connectivity to make healthcare happen”
Speech enablement was present with Nuance (now part of Microsoft) showing their updated DAX platform with an updated demonstration of the Interactive agent that just listened in to a patient/doctor consultation and produced a solid Clinical 10 seconds after they finished talking. It was notable this year that the demo included audience participation and offered a convincing vision of what documentation could look like as a passive activity automated by technology in the background
At the other end, Dr. Steven Waldren from the AAFP talked about their innovation hub concept to bring technology that is ready for implementation and put it into the hands of family practitioners quickly and economically. They have seen great success with the AI-driven documentation tool from Suki
At the forefront of data acquisition in the medical home for remote patients, monitoring is Donsi who has developed camera-based technology that acquires the patient’s heart rate and respiratory rate from a device sitting on the patient’s table. They obtained de-novo FDA approval for these two parameters and have several more in the pipeline. I expect we will see more of this company as they add to the tools available for clinicians to safely, and accurately monitor patients at home with user-friendly Clinical grade devices.
Meanwhile, despite the second opinion market filled with options, the uptake is low, even when the cost is covered by the patient’s payor according to Peter Rasmussen, MD, Chief Clinical Officer, at the clinic by the Cleveland Clinic. They have partnered with Amwell to deliver a frictionless second opinion solution that has changed the diagnosis in ~25% of cases and changed the treatment plan in 75%. Given those statistics, this might be something more people should consider. The flip side perspective is that it demonstrates the positive continued trusting relationship between patients and their doctors which I will file in the good news column.
Post-Pandemic Cleanliness
In my unscientific observation of behavior, it was noticeable that in all my visits to the male restroom I only spotted one individual leaving without washing their hands (this might have been the fact that both towel dispensers had failed but still). While that one is disappointing, it is a big improvement on previous pre-pandemic years when the numbers were much higher (as high as 69% of men in some studies!)
The bathrooms were certainly clean, to a fault…. reminding me of my gym experience where every piece of equipment was caked in spray cleanser. It was hard to tell if the floors were wet because of cleaning frequency or products being used, but they were treacherous a lot of the time and I regretted my shoe choice.
