Having fractured my ankle the Thursday before HIMSSanity in Vegas made the conference even more of a mountain.
I got assistance through the airports on the long journey from Dublin to Vegas via San Francisco, and got just a small glimpse of what it is like for those who can't walk the long distances through airports.
Once I got to Vegas, I thought the long journey was complete. That was before I got through the doors of the hotel to see a foyer the size of a football pitch. I managed one night hopping to my room on crutches and back down to one of the restaurants before I realized I was going to need more help than crutches, and hired a mobility scooter to get to and from my room.
Yet, I still managed to gather some key takeaways:
It was clear that patient experience and engagement was a key trend for HIMSS18, both from those conversations and from social media. As a vendor focused on patient engagement, it's great to see that the industry is finally moving closer to genuinely patient-centered care. What was evident is that there's still no clear framework for what this actually means. I spoke to various companies who were all thinking about specific interactions with patients - parts of the puzzle - but there is a real absence of a unifying view of all interactions.
Talking to the industry analysts, they were thinking this way. It's clear that the current analyst categories for patient engagement and Interactive Patient systems are no longer a sufficient framework for the trends in this space, and most importantly, for what patients actually need. Moving into 2019, we're going to see categories change and solutions consolidate towards a more holistic digital patient journey. What is clear as Klas reported, is that healthcare providers and the EHR portal vendors aren't thinking about patient needs holistically. This was great validation for Oneview's approach of thinking about the patient's needs and expectations along their digital journey and designing tools to support this journey and empower patients and families.
There were developments in interoperability, with the announcement that Meaningful Use would be overhauled to ensure data flows, and the MyHealthEData initiative to help put data in patients' hands. Sydney Children's Hospital Network had a similar vision, and won a Microsoft Health Innovation Award for the My Health Memory app, powered by the Oneview Connect platform, which enables patients to send and receive health data.
Another trend was healthcare education moving into a new generation of personalization. In my meetings with vendors, the talk was of how we can move towards personalized content to truly engage and empower patients and carers. Video education allowed us to move beyond the "check the box" printed education with more engaging content: now is the time to move beyond the first generation of video education, towards personalized "micro-learning" ensuring that patients and families have not just the information but the knowledge they need to manage their care.
Finally, I had the pleasure of meeting Regina Holliday who was painting at the Oneview stand. Regina is a patient advocate and artist who tells patient stories through art, helping bring the patient's voice to the center of the healthcare conversation. Regina's painting was a powerful reminder of why we do what we do, and how we need to continue our mission to use technology to help put patients at the center of care.