Conferences are tricky things. They’re exciting, chaotic and
thoroughly exhausting. But, when that final session comes to a close, it’s an
open question whether meaningful connections are made and objectives are met. It
can be all too easy to drown in the sea of attendees, sessions and swag.
Luckily, the HIMSS Annual Conference has historically
provided a great mix of “big, booming conference in a fun city” and real opportunities
for substantive engagement with the industry the conference represents. HIMSS15
was no different.
Chicago FHIR
Meeting of minds:
Dynamic Health IT, HL7 and MaxMD
FHIR-related puns – and the Twitter hashtag #FHIR – were popular at
HIMSS. And for good reason, FHIR is ablaze (sorry!) with potential as a major
tool in unlocking true interoperability in health IT. DHIT met with Grahame Grieve – the original architect and “man on FHIR.” Our colleagues at MaxMD
joined in too, with a discussion of shared goals in these two highly flexible,
powerful health IT tools: FHIR as a set of standards and Direct as a transport
protocol.
Grahame and HL7 International got in on the FHIR/fire
fun by featuring a “Sparky the FHIR dog” Dalmatian at their booth.
DHIT President Jeff
Robbins facilitates an impromptu
discussion of DIRECT and FHIR.
Patient Portals
FHIR was just one of many hot topics (pun intended) at HIMSS15.
Patient Portals continue to be much talked about, though with little consensus.
Jim Tate posted his entertaining
and illuminating article on the “death” of View, Download and Transmit last
week. This shift in Meaningful Use policy raises questions about the future of
patient engagement. How do tailor portal development for specific patient
populations? How do we make patient engagement about population health and
patient objectives, rather than arm-twisting? How do we ultimately measure
engagement?
Meaningful Use and
Certification
There was also substantial interest Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs) and the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). While CMS has worked to align the PQRS program with CQMs used in its
other EHR Incentive Programs, there are still many obscure details at play that
providers and EHR developers need to monitor.
DHIT enjoyed giving demos and sharing
expertise for years in the trenches with CQMs. We were grateful for the chance to meet up with subject matter experts like Tate and Joy Rios, who blogs at HITECH Answers and just wrote a book on
PQRS (ABCs
of PQRS, Greenbranch Publishing).
DHIT also attended sessions on 2015 Edition Certification
Measures and a detailed presentation of Stage 3 ONC Certification. Although
our industry is still sorting through much of the aftermath of Stage 2 – particularly the
new release of updated/expanded measures for 2015 reporting – make no mistake
that prepping for Stage 3 Certification has begun.
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