Category: Event Coverage

As the HIMSS Trade Show Changes Hands, I Can’t Help But Shrug

~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

Most of my healthcare technology network has spent the past few days speculating on the impact of the proposed sale of the HIMSS trade show to Informa. This isn’t surprising. I met most of these folks in person for the first time at HIMSS, and the annual event has been a big part of our professional (and a small part of our personal) lives for quite some time. It seems like the end of an era – something akin to your favorite dive bar closing because the new owner of the block wants to build lab space.

I’d argue that the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society can easily let go of the trade show and still support its members. In fact, without the burden of planning a huge event, it may arguably serve its members better, with more local in-person events through its dozens of chapters and more virtual events that can help members earn continuing education credits and come with a fraction of the operating expense. (Both could also increase accessibility for anyone unable to travel great distances for any number of reasons.)

Of course, there’s also HLTH (and, more recently, ViVE). The event has been largely successful, in part because it has focused on bringing people together in a festive atmosphere. That may seem trite, but particularly after the pandemic, there’s value in being able to convince people to convene in person. HLTH’s hosted buyer model is also the envy of many an event planner – it gets the provider and payer audience in for free while guaranteeing vendors the meetings with the decision-makers they crave.

Like any established entity facing an upstart – and especially one with some VC money behind it – HIMSS has felt pressure to compete. But it’s not without blame. The event was cancelled in 2020 – with little notice and with no immediate refunds available. (If you’ve ever worked for an event company, you know why this decision was made.) Partial credits were subsequently offered, but the decision left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.

Like I said, I primarily remember HIMSS fondly. I first attended in 2010, when TechTarget was launching its healthcare vertical site. I went most years between then and 2019. In 2015, I moderated a roundtable discussion, having had accepted a speaking submission proposal that I based off an article I wrote for CIO.com. In 2018 and 2019, I was a social media ambassador, having been picked mostly because I spent a lot of time on Twitter questioning whether the industry was truly engaging patients as it claimed to.

By 2019, though, the cracks were showing. That was the year attendance peaked at 43,000. (It was back up to 35,000 this spring, which was a pleasant surprise to me.) The expo hall floor was a maze, heavily favoring vendors with big pockets There wasn’t enough coffee or food, and little of the latter is healthy. The hotel shuttles – necessary, as HIMSS is so large it can only take place in sprawling cities – were perpetually late, and the ride share surcharges were more hilarious than painful only because I wasn’t paying for them myself. The agenda was crammed, which on the face of it isn’t bad but means it’s impossible to take in all the sessions you want to see.

Since then, my appetite for business travel has diminished substantially. By the summer of 2021, when the first post-pandemic event happened, I was a new father. I’ve yet to feel the tug of HIMSS, HLTH, ViVE, or any other large-scale event since then. (Full disclosure: Digital Health Insights, one of my clients, is run by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, which is a partner in ViVE.) It probably helps that I was able to use the previous events to build and cultivate a network that has lasted more than a decade and gotten me a fair share of my work.

That may be why I’m meeting the end of HIMSS as we know with a bit of a shrug. It’s still going to live on as the industry’s leading trade show. In fact, without direct attachment to the HIMSS organization, it may finally become the trade show it’s been trying to be for years, with more emphasis on vendors and less on speakers who have gone through a fairly cumbersome application process to get on the agenda and present in the seventh conference room on the right past the giant pillar with the wraparound banner for the company advertising its new AI assistant. Whether decision makers from provider organizations see value in attending remains to be seen, but the event will still make money.

As I said, HIMSS the organization may benefit from addition by subtraction, too. Smaller events may help people build local connections, and virtual events may let HIMSS remain a partner for professional development. The providers that can be hard to find at a trade show may play a more prominent role as well, whether directly as event hosts or sponsors or indirectly in their ability to send more people to an event now that hotel and airfare (plus ancillary costs like childcare or elder care, transportation, meals, and so on) are out of the picture.

Maybe the metaphor isn’t a dive bar closing so a lab can go up. (For my Greater Bostonians, that would be Sligo Pub. Did I go there? Yes. Do I miss it? No.) Maybe it’s a crappy bar getting sold, renovated with newfangled things like credit card machines and windows that open, and updated with local beer and decent food. (In this case, that’s Elm Street Taproom replacing the Joshua Tree, which I don’t think anyone misses.)

Time will tell, of course, but at the moment I’m not sure that I see much changing as the HIMSS trade show changes hands.

Thoughts on Health Experience Design from #HXD2020

~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

I’ve always enjoyed the Health Experience Design Conference, as it rather seamlessly merges the topics of patient/member experience (which I like to think I know well) as well as user experience research and behavior change design (which I know I do not know well but find fascinating nonetheless). On top of the content, which has inspired my writing more than once (look here and here), the event has yielded a fair number of professional and personal connections that I maintain many years later.

This year’s event pivoted to a 100% virtual format in a matter of weeks. On top of that, the discussion clearly pivoted as well, with the widespread and clearly long-term impact of COVID-19 becoming a focal point of many conversations. We heard about the impact of loneliness, the stress of the unpaid and unappreciated caregiver, the importance of shared decision-making, and the role of design in physical spaces — valuable topics at any time but all the more important these days.

Here’s a recap of the anecdotes, sessions, and concepts that caught my attention. (The #HXD2020 conversation on Twitter captured more insight as well.)

Empathy is at the center of HXD every year, and that was even more readily apparent in 2020. In this case, it’s not just the sort of empathy where you put yourselves in someone else’s shoes. It’s taking steps to show that you accept and respect another person’s point of view. It’s not just describing yourself as an ally; it’s actively using LGBTQ imagery on your websites. it’s not just saying that you are a patient-centric organization; it’s incorporating the patient experience into every part of the design of the digital and physical space.

Speaking of which, physical spaces hold power. People who go to a hospital or doctor’s office are vulnerable. They are sick; they have questions; they are afraid. Foreboding buildings with cold floors, bare walls, spartan exam rooms, and poor lighting aren’t going to make patients feel any better. Spaces for providing care — especially for and when people are feeling their worst — should be designed to put people at ease. (I would add that you need to walk a line between inviting and gaudy. Large windows for natural light? Sure. Big-screen TVs to welcome and educate patients? OK. Waterfalls? No.)

And as you consider those physical spaces, it’s important to design for equity. Mary Brown of Spectrum Health described how so, so many patients have been marginalized by the interwoven “systems” around them: Education, transportation, criminal justice, housing, labor, financial markets, and so on. Health care institutions need to view health, and care, through the lens of equity. Even when social determinants of health have been removed, the impact of marginalization due to the longstanding effects of SDoH will remain.

We are lonely. Dr. Danielle Ramo of Hopelab and UCSF Psychiatry presented research showing that college students, despite the connections that technology enables, feel disconnected. Obviously, the last month-plus of social distancing has made everyone feel disconnected. One important point from Ramo: Loneliness exists on a continuum, like many elements of mental health and well-being. Some days it’s worse than others; some people feel it more than others; sometimes it hits harder, even when circumstances seem to suggest that it shouldn’t.

Figure out what people need. Groundbreaking, no? But it gets to the heart of health care’s biggest challenges: Insurance products, digital health apps, clinical services, physical spaces, educational materials, and countless other offerings that are often well-intentioned but don’t actually meet the needs of patients, their caregivers, and their families. (I say “figure out” instead of “ask” because it’s important to recognize that not everyone is in a position to provide an answer if you ask a question, and you may need to do some further investigation.)

One more thing: The Center for Health Experience Design is hosting a challenge called Innovation at Home: Solutions for a Pandemic. The Center seeks create solutions to educate folks on two important measures for maintaining health: Washing your hands and not touching your face. (I did my part by shaving the social distancing beard that I would stroke whenever I was in deep thought. I’m often in deep thought, so this was A Big Deal.) Check it out if that’s your thing.