Care in the Cloud - Rx Helix IoT

Back in 1962, 54 people gathered in Baltimore Maryland – the first official meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management System Society, more commonly known as HIMSS. More than a half-century later, HIMSS has grown well beyond its humble beginnings as a 10 tabletop exhibition and conference, to accommodate well over 1300 exhibitors, 500 speakers, and over 75,000+ booked nights throughout 18 Las Vegas resorts.

So what’s all the hype? The main mission of HIMSS is to better healthcare through the use of IT, and the National HIMSS Conference is the annual event that provides a venue for innovation, collaboration, and standardization in the medical technology space. In some regards, I would almost describe it as the CES of the medical world – new gadgets, therapies, treatments, etc. Aside from the technology-enabled “WOW” factor, HIMSS has created a focal point for an entire industry to come together and create standards on which to design, implement, and sustain. Those standards are continually reinforced throughout the year with best practices from certified training partners, professional development, and vast resource libraries of industry research, pod casts, and product and service directories. Please visit http://www.himss.org/ for additional information on HIMSS and the national conference.

With an infusion of funding from the federal government, the healthcare IT industry has been experiencing the highest growth rate since the mid and late 2000’s. During this time, the rapid proliferation of technology and the need for interoperability between clinical enterprise solutions, the industry maintained a course of “true north”, due in part to the guidance and training efforts of HIMSS. With the recent adoption of new reimbursements for telehealth and telemedicine riding the coat tails of new opportunities created by Internet of Things (IoT), we expect to see a sharp rise in the number of providers enabling care in the home – well beyond the hospital walls. Collaboration and partnerships with experts in device-side solutions, security, and IoT will be necessary to enable cost-effective development and timely market introduction of these solutions.

If you’re attending HIMSS 2016 – Las Vegas, please stop by the Intel booth 3032 and chat with us about how Wind River and the complete Helix and device-side software technology suite will springboard your organization through the challenges of enabling secure connected healthcare.