There’s an old joke about a styling salon that opened its doors directly across from one of those $10 haircut places. No one thought they could compete. On opening day, the $10 haircut store put up a big sign that read, “All haircuts just $10.” The new styling salon countered with a sign of their own that read, “We fix $10 haircuts.”
What does that have to do with HIMSS? Not much, except to point out that competition is healthy and can always be managed.
I interviewed 12 top healthcare industry execs and physicians from the Carefx booth on every topic concerning healthcare IT today, including health information exchange, interoperability, information security, medication reconciliation, eReferral and, of course, meaningful use. Each interviewee spoke enthusiastically about their knowledge and experience in these areas. Even given the interjection of last year’s lurker topic – cost – discussions were lively and the information relevant. To gain a clear understanding of the challenges today’s healthcare CIOs, CMIOs, IT directors, CEOs, nurses and even industry analysts are experiencing be sure to check out all of the videos at www.yourcarefx.com.
The marketing messages from these companies have not changed much from last year, although they are more finely honed and specific. Now that meaningful use has been defined into seven distinct stages, it’s easier for companies to refine their marketing message based on their product line. Washington will continue to define meaningful use and companies will continue to tailor their marketing messages and target specific aspects of healthcare, rather than sending out blanket campaigns. This will enable hospitals and physicians practices to make intelligent purchasing decisions that will hit the bull’s eye and not just wing the target.
I shared a taxi with two HIMSS analysts and I had an opportunity to question them on EMR adoption. According to their somewhat complex criteria, of the 5200 hospitals in America, at least 50 percent have adopted and are using some form of healthcare IT and a significant number of those are employing full-blown EMRs. They qualified that by saying that that did not include CPOE, and neither of them would hazard a guess on how many hospitals are engaged in information exchange. Nevertheless, that’s a huge jump from the over-reported statistic of “only” 2 percent adoption from last year. HIMSS has a nice Web site for studying such numbers: www.himssanalytics.org.
Only 365 days to the next HIMSS!
Michael McBride
