With HIMSS ’19 wrapped up, we reflect on our experiences and learnings from our time in sunny Orlando, Fl.
Not only were we able to showcase our strategic partners and portfolio companies in the exhibit hall, but also highlight innovations and research from UPMC and our partners at the Center for Connected Medicine in several sessions.
New Innovations and Research
The week started off with a pre-conference Cloud Computing Forum on Monday. This forum included two speaking events, the first featuring Janet King, Senior Director Market Insights, HIMSS Media, presenting the Center for Connected Medicine’s research on the top concerns from health care executives when using the cloud for clinical data.
Following a presentation on cloud security, attendees heard from John Houston, Vice President, Privacy and Information Security & Associate Counsel, UPMC, on how to ensure your organization moves safely to the cloud. Houston, along with colleagues at Cleveland Clinic, and Tufts Medical Center discussed why they created HITRUST, a third-party risk management council. This council was created to adopt an industry-wide, single security and privacy assessment and certification program for health care organizations to identify and manage their risk.
On Tuesday, the first official day of HIMSS, UPMC executives spoke as part of two different panels. Dr. Andrew Watson, Vice President, Clinical Information Technology Transformation, spoke about the benefits of remote monitoring for chronic disease management and highlighted the work of our portfolio company, Vivify Health.
Following Dr. Watson’s session, attendees listened to Dr. Srinivasan Suresh, Chief Medical Information Officer, UPMC Children’s Hospital, explain why patient portals are so vital to patients and caregivers. Dr. Suresh explained the benefits of housing educational materials, bi-lingual pages, test results, and physician messaging all within the patient portal to improve the patient experience.
On Thursday morning, attendees heard again from Dr. Suresh about clinical pathways and frameworks to improve outcomes and ROI for patients and health systems. Attendees had an inside look at UPMC Children’s Hospital’s clinical framework for cholecystectomy, isolated hyperbilirubinemia, and simple abscess/cellulitis. Dr. Suresh outlined how, after implementing clinical frameworks at Children’s Hospital, patients’ average length of stay decreased from 160 to 92 hours.
Overall, it was an eye-opening week, with new results and innovations coming from our partnerships across the health care system.
Our Portfolio Companies and Partners in Health Care Innovation
When attendees weren’t listening to UPMC experts in speaking sessions, they had the opportunity to learn about how we’re transforming health care through our commercialization arm, UPMC Enterprises. Much like last year, we used our booth to showcase several portfolio companies and strategic partners to highlight the efforts of UPMC Enterprises. This year’s booth featured our partners Health Fidelity, Moxe, Socially Determined, RxRevu, and Xealth.
Representatives from each company shared product information, conducted demos, and spoke with the hundreds of attendees who stopped by our booth to discuss the future of health care. Learn more about how our portfolio of companies are changing health care for the better.
