Goodbye to 2011 - A Recap of the Year's Events - Part 1

As 2011 washes into history making way for 2012, I want to send my warmest and most sincere wishes for a Healthy, Happy and Most Blessed New Year in 2012 for all. 

I entered 2011 finishing up my duties as Interim CEO for CareSpark.  I have had the pleasure of working with CareSpark since 2005 first as a volunteer and then starting in 2009, I contracted to provide strategic and technical services in support of their implementation of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN), the SSA Sponsored Project as well as a limited CMS pilot with three HIE's. 

Unfortunately, CareSpark made the decision to close and announced it in July 2011.  I had really hoped that the community would be able to come together to move the services forward under the CareSpark umbrella.  I am still busy running my business, Serendipity Health, LLC, that has provided full time employment for me this year for which I am grateful.  It has been quite some time since I have posted, so I will start this first post of the year giving you a recap of some of the highlights that I experienced in 2011.  

In January 2011, I had the opportunity to volunteer my time as one of the IHE North American Connectathon monitors helping grade/evaluate vendor tests for various Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) profiles. Over 4000 tests were completed by over 450 health IT system engineers.  These engineers represent over 100 HIT organizations who had the goal of testing interoperability and working to fine tune their implementations in over 150 products to meet the requirements of the various IHE International profiles. These same profiles make up components of the many NwHIN and Meaningful Use standards. This group picture is of all the monitors that worked together to pull off the grand task of grading the over 4000 tests over the one week event.

January in Chicago is not my favorite place to be, but I feel honored that I was asked to help and gladly volunteered my time to help the healthcare industry with this worthwhile effort. The event this year will be held January 9-14, 2012.  

In February 2011, I attended the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference along with some 30,000+ other attendees. The week started with me being one of the presenters at the Interoperability Workshop held early in the week.  My contribution to the agenda was to wrap up the workshop with the overview of US relevant standards including NwHIN and The Direct Project that are required for providers to implement Meaningful Use. The workshop sold out attendance and was very interactive for all attendees. I shared the presenter duties with Lee Jones, Keith Boone, and Bob Yencha.   

The week was full of activities and networking. Steve Leiber and David Blumenthal presented to a standing room only audience at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase.  The next several topics were all included in the Showcase which was the largest ever at nearly one acre in size.  It had all the typical areas represented as well as the area hosted by Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) showing approximately 40 demonstrations highlighting how health practitioners are securely exchanging health data between doctor's offices, hospitals, benefit providers, government agencies and with other health organizations, all across America.  I am happy to report that two stations within the ONC area, showcased some of my contracted endeavors from 2010 through 2011.  

The AmeriHealth Mercy and Independence Blue Cross station showcased the initiative created by both organizations that gives health care providers better access to health plan information and improves the quality of member care.  I am proud to have been involved in a small way with this innovative way of leveraging the standards by various stakeholders focusing on two use cases - sharing medication information and hospital admission through secure patient portals, provider portals, and HIEs.

The second station that I was involved with was one of eight pilots demonstrating the use of Direct Project specifications.  I have been involved with the Direct Project since it's launch in March 2010. This demonstration illustrated the feasibility of utilizing the Direct Project constructs to enable secure messaging between a federal agency (Veterans Affairs), and a regional health information exchange network (CareSpark). This demonstration showed the secure, standards-based transmission of a referral for mammography from a VA medical center to a private sector provider clinic, and the reply from the private sector provider clinic with a text based report. 

This CareSpark pilot demonstration  transitioned to the Health Information Partnership for Tennessee (HIP-TN) after the HIMSS conference and resulted in the delivery of live patient information in September 2011.  I feel very lucky to be managing the Direct Project strategy as well as the NwHIN Exchange onboarding and acting as the CTO contracted to HIP-TN both last year and now going into 2012.  I count my blessing each day and give thanks for the priviledge to help my own state and Keith Cox, CEO of HIP-TN with our go forward strategies to improve the healthcare quality while reducing the costs associated.  

Michael J. Fox was one of the keynote speakers and the DeLorean time machine used in the Back to the Future trilogy was on display on the showroom floor.  I had a good friend offer to take the picture of me in front of it. Yes, it is a bit silly, but I just had to when the offer was made.  Thanks Cliff...

One of the days there was a Tweetup of of us "technogeeks" in the HIT industry who showed to support the cause of outreach and education.  I finally got to meet up with some of the wonderful folks I have had the opportunity to work with over my 22 year career in HIT. 

I attended several events over the course of the week in Orlando at HIMSS, including the H.I.T. Men and Women Reception which toasts the art and inspired vision of today's most powerful healthcare IT leaders. I am honored to serve on the TN HIMSS Board with Michael Hollis who is the brainchild for this event. At HIMSS 2011, I was lucky enough to walk the red carpet with Michael and Antoine Aggasi both of which are working to advance interoperable healthcare. I am going to end this post update today since I have written quite a bit for your to digest and tomorrow morning will be here before i know it.  

I will give the update on the remainder of the year tomorrow so stay tuned for another post soon.  I have been asked by so many of my friends lately what I have been up to, so I share this with those who care. If you don't care, then you would not have read this far.  I promise to post more often this coming year and reconnect with many of you who I look forward to seeing and working with again in 2012.  Until next time.....

Call for Participation - 2010 Summit of the Southeast

 

As a TN HIMSS Board Member and HIE Liaison, I feel it is my duty to fulfill the mission and vision of the TN HIMSS Chapter and ask all those that follow me to consider attending the next conference event. Join the AL, AR, KY, SC and TN Chapters in the largest HIMSS Combined Chapter Conference.There is still time to register for the early bird rates for the 2010 HIMSS Summit of the Southeast.  The Summit offers attendees the chance to join one of the most unique Chapter conferences in the country.  

This meeting is designed to offer attendees access to and hear from the leading healthcare providers and healthcare technology companies in the Southeast.  By attending this conference, you will get a chance to hear national and local leaders on these key agenda items:

• Clinical Informatics (A Credit Session)
• Hospital CEO Discussion
• Keynote – Meaningful Use and Meaningful Change
• State of HIMSS
• Keynote – State of our Nation: A National Road Map
• HIT/HIE Short-term Benefits and Long-term Investment – Panel Discussion
• Evolving Role of the CIO/CMIO/CMO – Panel Discussion
• Keynote – Safety and Quality
• Hospital Point of Care Impact:  Clinicians Sound Off
• Ambulatory Point of Care Impact:  Clinicians Sound Off

This year, the Summit is two days, October 11th and 12th. As such, we have two different options for registration. If you would like to attend the Special Session on October 11th ONLY, please choose that option. If you wish to attend the ENTIRE Summit on October 11th and 12th, please choose the Entire Summit option. I will be attending both days and look forward to seeing many of you there. Make sure to register now to get your early bird rates while they still apply! Safe travels!

Tennessee's Department of Economic & Community Development...Invest in Tennessee

The 57th Annual/2010 Governor's Conference will be held September 16 - 17, 2010 in Nashville, TN.   I won't be able to attend as I will be on vacation, but a variety of informative sessions will be delivered. As a proud Tennessean, I can say, Tennessee is good for business, offering a beneficial labor environment, productive and educated work force, wonderful quality of life and wealth of technology resources. These factors combine to create a business climate that gives companies a winning edge in their long-term growth and profitability.

Since my blog is centered on Healthcare IT, I wanted to tie together this conference with the Nashville Medical Trade Center.  I blogged about this new center back in April.  I understand that since the initial announcement in April, there has been significant activities.  I wanted to share this video that highlighted some of these activities.



I am so happy to see the continued success of the interactive interoperability showcase that I helped create in 2004 and launch internationally in Europe and Asia. I was blessed to meet and introduce our Governor to the showcase for the first time in 2005. It is wonderful to see this key feature for HIMSS now have a permanent and flexible home at the Nashville Medical Trade Center.  I look forward to seeing the vision and passion continue to grow while creating many wonderful opportunities for the citizens in our great state.  I hope that I as founder and President of Serendipity Health can continue collaborating with stakeholders across the state of Tennessee to find ways to deploy connected healthcare to help improve the quality of care for us all.   

Kudos to my home state of Tennessee on the newly announced Nashville Medical Trade Center

The Nashville Medical Trade Center has signed its first major tenant: the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The partnership with HIMSS was announced at a news conference today in Nashville attended by Gov. Phil Bredesen, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, state Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber, HIMSS President and CEO Stephen Lieber and Bill Winsor, president and CEO of Market Center Management Co., the developer of the medical mart.

Project officials said today that HIMSS an “anchor tenant,” is one that is essential to the initial success of the project and will attract other tenants. The medical mart must lease 60 to 70 percent of its 1.5 million square feet in permanent showroom space to secure financing for its plans to remodel and expand the existing Nashville Convention Center downtown.

Market Center Management Co., the developer for the Nashville Medical Trade Center, hopes to transform the Nashville Convention Center into a global headquarters for health care events and the exchange of medical equipment and other related products. The highly anticipated project would employ 2,760 people, generate $390 million in economic activity a year and produce $21 million a year in state and local taxes by 2019, according to a study conducted by the University of Tennessee.

The proposed $250 million medical mart will lease 25,000 square feet permanently to HIMSS to use for a an “interoperability showcase.” The last US showcase, which was part of HIMSS’ annual conference in March in Atlanta, included 84 vendors and 71 educational sessions and attracted about 5,000 people over the course of three days. At 25,000 square feet, HIMSS would occupy 1.7 percent of the medical mart.

“A permanent, year-round destination for (health information technology) activity and innovation would only be possible inside this groundbreaking marketplace,” Lieber said. “By joining the trade center we are able to reach more participants, demonstrate meaningful use more completely, and offer more flexibility than ever before.”

I am proud to have been the first co-chair helping launch of the first US HIMSS Interoperability Showcase in 2004 and then launching the first HIMSS World of Health IT and HIMSS AsiaPac Showcases in 2006 and 2007 while working for HIMSS. I am so very proud of my home state, Tennessee, for providing a new  home for the showcase.   The showcases have always been used to “demonstrate standards-based health IT applications in a venue that stimulates health information exchange in health care settings.” HIMSS is a nonprofit organization that promotes “a better understanding of health care information and management systems. I would never have believed that I would serendipitously host Governor Phil Bredesen at the 2007 HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, host former Senator Bill Frist at the 2008 Showcase and now live and work in Tennessee who will be hosting the Interoperability Showcase permanently in the future.



I feel very blessed to have worked with HIMSS to bring vendors and users together to demonstrate meaningful use and improved quality that interoperable health care applications and devices can bring; I look forward to seeing Nashville, TN move forward in it's plans to be an epicenter for the medical industry with the new medical mart. This is a new concept that does not exist any other place in the world, but the Market Center hopes to transform the Nashville Convention Center into a global headquarters for health care events and the exchange of medical equipment and other related products.

Make sure to check out the video gallery to get further information and see the live press conference from earlier today.  Go Tennessee!.

IHE 2010 North America Connectathon

I wanted to share a bit about the IHE 2010 North America Connectathon that was held last week in Chicago, IL. I have been part of the IHE world since 2001 and during this tenure I have worn many hats. I was...

1. One of first Founding Planning Committee Co-Chair duties for the IT Infrastructure Domain
2. Founding Co-Chair for Interoperability Showcase Planning Committee
3. Sr. Director responsible for the North American Connectathon event along with RSNA who share the IHE USA secretariat duties. In addition, while at HIMSS, I was responsible for the IHE deployment activities for HIMSS Interoperability Showcases in North America, Europe, and Asia as well as the IHE International Secretariat duties for the four HIMSS sponsored domains:

• IT Infrastructure (ITI)
  
• Patient Care Coordination (PCC)
• Patient Care Devices (PCD)
• Quality, Research and Public Health (QRPH)

And now, I wear yet another hat of the User Stakeholder community in need of interoperable systems. As a Connectathon monitor this year, I am happy to report that I saw "meaningful use requirements" tested among systems using IHE profiles and HITSP Interoperability Specifications.

IHE Connectathons have been used by vendors to help develop interoperable HIT systems and by healthcare institutions and government-organized electronic health record programs around the world to design, test, acquire and implement such systems.  I look forward to seeing the scenarios demonstrating the support of  "meaningful use" at the 2010 HIMSS Interoperability Showcase to be held in Atlanta during the annual conference.

IHE national deployment organizations have been established in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA.  Regional deployment organizations are active in Europe and North America. 

I volunteered to help with monitor duties this year for the North American Connectathon and was assigned to be part of a team of monitors responsible for reviewing vendor compliance to the Patient Care Coordinaton (PCC) profiles. I was one of some 50 monitors led by 4 managers for the event. You will see me in my green jacket along with all the others wearing orange. Of note, my friend and partner, founding co-chair for both the showcases as well as the ITI Domain, Glen Marshall, is also in this picture (6th from the right/second row).

I do like to be unique, but this day I was not only being unique but also rebelling in support of our TN Football team who had just lost a coach the day before that made national news and the talk in Chicago.

While helping with monitor duties this past week, I had the opportunity to learn more about how Europe and Australia will be holding their own testing Connectathons and Projectathon (the newly coined term for Regional project based activities. One such example is what IHE Europe is helping epSOS with later this year). 

It was wonderful to learn how  these two countries along with many others continue to leverage the technical frameworks made freely available by IHE. Not many know that the IHE testing tools are actually a collection of open source offerings made freely available to all. 

This picture was taken of Charles Parisot, IHE Europe member representing GE Healthcare and Dr Vincent McCauley MB BS, Ph.D who is chair of IHE Australia. We discussed the various plans underway for live deployments and I provided Charles updated information for CareSpark who I am working with in my region.  CareSpark is a not-for-profit organization that has implemented an IHE/HITSP standards-based Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) that began in 2005 and is listed in the "Where in the World is XDS" google map along with deployments nationally and internationally across the globe. 

It  has been estimated that some 125 test per hour were reviewed by monitors during the week long event. I really enjoyed seeing many old friends this past week and meeting many new ones.  The Connectathon attendance was a record high this year and I continue to be inspired by all the hard work and support from all the organizations to ensure their systems are interoperable. I will be giving an update on the Connectathon events this week at the TN HIMSS Chapter meeting on January 21, 2010. I look forward to educating the stakeholders in my region as well as across the nation about what is available today and how one can leverage IHE profiles and testing tools to help test for deployment of "meaningful use" of connected healthcare. IHE members and volunteers continue to make a difference in health care today !  I look forward to seeing many of you at the HIMSS 2010 Interoperability Showcase in Atlanta in March.