If you ever wanted to see an industry on the verge of a course-altering breakthrough, you should have been at HiMSS in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Of the many things I took away from the conference, the one that stands out the most is that the health information technology industry is about to explode – in a good way.

It was rather obvious that the $20 billion the federal government allotted in last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to digitize medical records over the next five years is motivating and mobilizing the entire industry in a way it hasn’t been motivated or mobilized before.  Add in the new healthcare reform law that calls for the widespread use of healthcare technology, and you can see why the buzz at HiMSS was more like a small roar and will continue to get louder and louder.

It was downright inspiring to see that the industry understands that the only way it is going to meet all of this demand and capitalize on the resulting opportunities is through collaboration, interoperability and facilitating health information exchange. These themes were everywhere at HiMSS. I got a real sense that, finally, it’s becoming clear that no one entity is going to be able to solve the HIT puzzle itself. That only by working together and enabling the open, bidirectional exchange of clinical data to give all stakeholders mutual access to complete patient information can we bring true change to the system. 

Collaboration and interoperability are concepts we’ve been advocating for more than two decades. Allowing the real-time exchange of actionable clinical data among all healthcare stakeholders — to put smart patient data in the hands of users where they want it, whenever they want it and to enable them to utilize it regardless of technical platform —plays a pivotal role in healthcare’s technological transformation. At HiMSS it became clear that healthcare IT companies are going to be the cogs that turn the wheels that make it happen. And by working together through new and innovative partnerships and alliances, it really seems as if we as an industry can bring real improvements to the healthcare system.

The next few months and years are really going to be exciting.

Scott Storrer

President and CEO, MEDecision