HIMSS ’18 was a little different for the UPMC Enterprises team. This year, we exhibited on the show floor, showcasing some of the impressive companies who are a part of our Enterprises portfolio. We also had the opportunity to share expertise from a couple of our executives during sessions and panels. It was a busy five days packed full of knowledge and meaningful conversations.
We’ve compiled the below highlights, from speaking sessions to the UPMC booth experience. Have highlights of your own? Share them by tweeting @UPMCEnterprises and be sure to look for us at this year’s HLTH conference, May 6-9 at the Aria, back in sunny Las Vegas!
Sharing Knowledge
UPMC helped kick off HIMSS ’18 on Monday, March 5, with two sessions featuring Dr. Pamela Peele, Chief Analytics Officer, UPMC Health Plan, and Executive Vice President, UPMC Enterprises. In her first session, “Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the Clinical Setting,” Dr. Peele addressed the need to sort out the hype versus reality when it comes to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care. In her second session, “Information Integration: Leveraging Data Analytics to Mitigate Actuarial Challenges,” Dr. Peele reviewed the potential rewards associated with data, how turning massive amounts of data into knowledge can help health systems address several issues, and the resources needed to develop a strong data science function.
UPMC was also represented by Dr. Rasu Shrestha, Chief Innovation Officer, UPMC, and Executive Vice President, UPMC Enterprises, who was featured in four sessions throughout the week covering the topics of innovation for both established companies and startups, patient care, and empathy. Speaking on innovation, Dr. Shrestha highlighted the importance of finding the right collaborators who have a shared vision and sense of urgency in order to create and implement new solutions to solve pressing issues. On Wednesday, Dr. Shrestha tackled the topic of patients as consumers, specifically sharing tools, concepts, and approaches leading providers are using to deliver a more positive patient and family experience. Finally, Dr. Shrestha addressed the perceived empathy gap in health care, noting that empathy must be a core value for every health care delivery system.
Taking a clinical approach was Dr. Srinivasan Suresh, Chief Medical Information Officer, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Dr. Suresh presented a case study on predicting hospital readmissions at the point of care. His session outlined how Children’s Hospital has been able to accurately predict 80 percent of hospital discharges with a high-risk of readmission thanks to a real-time tool. As a result, the hospital now has intervention plans in place to help reduce preventable admissions.
Showcasing Our Portfolio Companies
Many HIMSS attendees were familiar with UPMC as an integrated health system, but were surprised to learn about UPMC Enterprises and our notable portfolio of companies. This year’s booth featured eight of those companies, including Cavulus, Health Fidelity, Lantern, Ovation, Prodigo, RxAnte, Vivify Health, and Xealth.
Representatives from each company were available to share product information, conduct demos, or just talk about the future of health care. If you didn’t have a chance to visit our booth, learn more about our portfolio companies here.
Taking Home Hardware
UPMC and Health Catalyst were honored as joint recipients of Microsoft Corp.’s 2018 Health Innovation Awards for the use of the Health Catalyst CORUS suite. The CORUS suite, a cost-management system, was co-developed by UPMC and Health Catalyst. UPMC has used CORUS’s activity-based costing and analytics to drive cost savings and improve clinical outcomes for a variety of service lines, generating $5 million in supply savings and providing insights into $42 million in cost reduction opportunities.
Making Headlines
UPMC speakers were also featured in several HIMSS-related stories. Learn more below:
- CIO Magazine – 3 Takeaways from HIMSSanity in Las Vegas
- The Healthcare Blog – Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 7
- Healthcare IT News – Analytics Guru Pamela Peele Talks About Following Her Instinct and Landing Her Dream Job
- Healthcare Dive – Docs Get an Empathy Lesson
- TechTarget SearchHealthIT – HIMSS 2018 Focuses on AI in Healthcare
- HealthTech – HIMSS 2018: The Philosophical Underpinnings of Achieving Connected Healthcare
- Mobi Health News – IT Leaders Highlight Big Success with Machine Learning Models
