Government Invasion of Health IT Vendor Show

The Office of the National Coordinator and other Federal and State officials make a strong showing at HIMSS

This year's HIMSS is very heavy on government officials as both attendees and presenters. This is not surprising due to the billions of ARRA funds devoted to health IT. Vendors are of course very interested in meeting with decision makers in state and federal government, and states in particular have a very keen interest in health information exchange and electronic health record vendors as they develop plans for implementation.

Some of the highlights of the ONC presentations are:

• Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, will share his thoughts about ONC’s priorities for 2010 during the Keynote Address(March 3, 8:30 a.m.).
• The U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra will also be at HIMSS to discuss “The Role of Healthcare IT in Building a 21^st Century Technology Ecosystem” (March 3, 2:15 p.m.)  HHS CTO Todd Park will join him immediately afterward in a dialog with participants on innovation and the future direction of health IT.
• ONC will be hosting a series of Pre-Conference Symposium Events (February 28) including: a Physician Symposium Keynote Address and a State HIE Symposium.
• During the Town Hall Session (March 2, 2:15 p.m.), ONC will host an interactive session, Implementing HITECH, which will bring together key players within ONC leadership to discuss current and upcoming programs to advance the national health IT agenda.
• ONC will host a series of Education Sessions including: The Costs and Benefits of Health IT (March 1, 9:45 a.m.) ,  Health IT Regulatory Review (March 2, 9:45 a.m.), and  Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) – 2010 (March 3, 1 p.m.) .
• ONC and the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) will participate in the State CIO Panel (March 3, 2:15 p.m.) and theClinical Decision Support Panel (March 3, 2:15 p.m.).
• At the Interoperability Showcase Theater, ONC and the FHA are hosting 25 presentations by organizations that illustrate how the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) is enabling secure, electronic health information exchange across diverse providers and jurisdictions.

I'll be attending many of these sessions and will write about some of them that I find especially interesting.