More than 43,000 people descended on Las Vegas last week for the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual meeting. The buzz at HIMSS has shifted from meaningful use and health IT adoption, to tapping into artificial intelligence, generating actionable data, and, importantly, embracing consumerism.
And in case you missed it, here's a roundup of some of the big announcements that happened at HIMSS18.
1) Alphabet announced the Google Cloud Healthcare application programming interface, which can pull data from electronic health records and other sources. It relies on DICOM, FHIR and other standards to extract and gather data for machine learning. The company also announced that the Google App Engine and Cloud Machine Learning Engine support HIPAA compliance.
2) CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced the Trump administration's MyHealthEData initiative, through which the government intends to give patients more control over their data. Verma also announced an overhaul of the government's EHR incentive programs. White House adviser Jared Kushner spoke before Verma, calling for greater interoperability. The Trump administration is pushing for greater patient control of health data. "Medical data belongs to the patient," Kushner said.
3) Cerner Corp. will add Salesforce's Health Cloud and Marketing Cloud to its HealtheIntent big data platform. The combination will better engage consumers and providers, according to the company.
4) Validic launched Validic Impact, a remote-monitoring platform that connects to at-home medical devices and wearables for tracking patients with chronic conditions and in post-acute care. The platform integrates directly into EHR and care-management systems.
5) UnitedHealthcare is bringing the Apple Watch into its UnitedHealthcare Motion wellness program. UnitedHealthcare Motion participants pay tax and shipping for an Apple Watch and then apply earnings from the program to "pay off" the cost of the device. They will own it after they have racked up enough activity.
6) Data network Human API and the CMS will push the CMS' new Blue Button 2.0 API through Human API's network, making the tool available to 53 million Medicare patients. Third-party developers and providers can use the API to integrate claims information from Medicare beneficiaries. Those beneficiaries, in turn, can link their information to third-party applications.
7) Epic Systems Corp. has integrated Nuance's AI-powered virtual assistant into its EHR. Now, providers will be able to ask for lab results, medication lists, visit summaries and other information in the Epic Haiku mobile app. Also, scheduling staff will be able to use the virtual assistant to modify appointments via voice technology.
