On Wednesday morning, Aug. 11, during HIMSS21, the annual conference sponsored by the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society, and being held at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, Hal Wolf, HIMSS’s president and CEO, held a press briefing for media in the press room at the Sands.
Wolf answered questions from about a dozen assembled members of the press, including Healthcare Innovation.
The first question, asked by Healthcare Innovation, was whether Wolf had any specific expectations going into HIMSS21, on any front, and whether any such expectations had been fulfilled or not. Wolf was also asked what the attendance numbers were for this conference.
“You’ll get the numbers tomorrow,” Wolf said. “We’re thrilled with the numbers, and we’re thrilled with the participation. I spent yesterday walking the floor,” he added. “And our staff has done a phenomenal job of social distancing. And the vendors, the market suppliers, are very, very happy. So it’s been a consistent story: yes, there are fewer attendees, but those who are here are very, very engaged. The conversations are rich and satisfying. I was unsure what that social distancing would be like. And it will be interesting going forward. And a lot of exhibitors have said, oh, we like this spaciousness! And the content has been fantastic—very rich content.” In short, he said, “It’s different, yep, but it’s really meeting positive expectations” this year. “And the panel sessions have been very, very well attended. And it’s been very energizing, so, happy is how I feel.”
Asked whether he had any thoughts on perhaps keeping the conference smaller-sized—compared to the 40,000-plus attendance of the past few years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic—and any lessons learned from this year’s experience, Wolf said that “There are a couple of really great things that have come out of this. The spacing and the opportunity have been very positive. And you can’t ignore the impact of HIMSS Digital”—the digital component of HIMSS21. “People are watching from all over the world; I had someone from Italy, watching the opening session; and someone from Russia. But what we did this time that was so unique is that we’ve flanked the conference itself with HIMSS Digital, pre- and post- the main conference. And we learned that during HIMSS20, about putting together digital”—there was no in-person conference in 2020, but HIMSS did sponsor a number of remote events. “So the biggest lesson learned is that we’re going to continue to figure out how to combine the digital and in-person.”
Asked again about attendance, Wolf reiterated that HIMSS would announce the total attendance for this conference, on Wednesday. “We’ve been very pleased with the numbers; and everything’s a snapshot in time,” he said. “But we’re still seeing people coming in with fresh registrations, even yesterday.”
Further, Wolf said, “The other part of it, too, is, do we as an example up on stage, do more with these combinations of live people and talking heads, to bring in some different perspectives? Sometimes we had to rearrange panels because someone’s on the other side of the world. We’re going to figure that out. But for example, with Dr. Ran Balicer, who came to us live from Israel, it worked.” (Here, he was referring to Prof. Ran Balicer, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., the chief innovation officer at Clalit-the largest healthcare organization in Israel.) “So we’re going to assess all those things. We’ll figure out the new normal.
“What are some of the barriers that exist to breaking down barriers in healthcare, and what kind of role can HIMSS play?” one member of the press asked. “That question you just asked is literally the biggest change management question that healthcare has dealt with from the beginning of time,” Wolf replied. “Healthcare has always been a series of specialists; and as soon as you develop specialization, you get silos. So what’s inhibiting us? Integration is hard, and it’s tied into change management. Healthcare follows the money, globally—and so that drives how we work together, from a structure standpoint. We think about single or multiple payers of care, instead of single or multiple buyers of care. And one of the things I’ve been talking about with government officials is, how do we shift from single payer to single buyer? How do you buy the right care for a person, and restructure how you pay for and deliver services, based on that? We call a part of that value-based care, but it involves a fundamental restructuring. And people get that now: you cannot do telehealth on a 24/7 basis without connectivity and aggregation of a care model, based on individual needs, etc. So the total-health, value-based, single-buyer [approach], that’s going to be the key; it really is,” Wolf said.
“Now, how do you shore up the fragmented funding system?” he went on. “You have to have the actual information. And we are finally catching on that we have in effect a population health issue; and if you heard the ONC/CDC conversation yesterday [here, he was referencing the federal health policy discussion that he had moderated the day before and that included National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., M.P.P., and Daniel Jernigan, M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Director for Public Health Science and Surveillance (DDPHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)], you heard that we have got to make population health as a primary starting point. But that is an aggregation of all this other data. And then we can allow machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] and all those other things to come up. But you can’t solve the problem unless you identify the problem. So it’s exciting,” he said. “And if you walk the floor, ask in the booths, what would be the benefit to your product if you had access to better data and information? In many cases, I think you’ll hear, ohmygosh, that would be fantastic.”
Asked what areas hospital systems would be focusing on in terms of spending money on IT in the next year, Wolf said that “I don’t know of a single consulting house around the globe that isn’t maxed out right now, because that’s the question being asked. When COVID-19 hit, even the most sophisticated systems in the world got maxed out. And they grabbed the best tools they could. Now that we see a new normal in terms of telehealth usage, that’s a different strategic point. And I would say people are recognizing the gaps in terms of the personnel available to them. We do see the numbers, such as 20 percent of nurses saying they won’t renew their licenses; people are burning out. We had a wonderful CXO discussion yesterday about where things are headed. It’s not about how do I go back to where I was? That new normal will involve a different relationship.”
How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted strategic planning for hospitals and health systems? “When the pandemic hit, everybody had to react,” Wolf said. “Now, everyone’s taking a step back and looking at what’s next. There’s a bigger play here, which is, I’m moving forward, what’s my leap? That’s very exciting.” Indeed, Wolf cited “$15 billion in investment in digital health in the first quarter alone. And there’s usually about a one-year lag between investment and products starting to come out. And you can see demos around AI and ML and other applications that are transforming the world into health-at-home; and in the clinic and hospital, they’re realigning how to manage [institutions and telehealth]. And it’s not simple; someone’s got to be scheduled, and someone’s got to set up the processes,” he added.
Asked about the evolution of machine learning and AI, Wolf responded that “There are a lot of machine learning and AI components that are already across a lot of what we’re seeing. It’s a question of degree. People don’t necessarily understand what level of AI or machine learning is already built into solutions. We sort of see AI/ML as some kind of magic, binary thing. AI is not a magic bullet; there are no magic bullets. But the reality is that our predictive modeling, clinical decision support, and recommendations, are often driven in the background by components of machine learning and AI that are already in there. I think there will be accountable and responsible use. And I think the future is very bright.”
Asked about how the safety precautions taken by the HIMSS organization around HIMSS21—all attendees were required to submit proof online of vaccination before entering the Sands Convention Center, confirming that online proof through its presentation on one of two apps, upon entering the Sands—Wolf said that “We’ve been doing an incident gathering every day, and things have been going very well.”
