The highlight of the conference: HIMSS

I’m currently on the HIMSS conference in Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you who do not know what HIMSS stands for, it’s the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. This conference is some of the progressive conferences I actually have ever attended. According to the HIMSS representative I spoke with, 25,000 people participated this 12 months. For those all in favour of how technology can improve practice, this conference is for you. Nurse informatics specialists, clinical leaders, and nurse leaders demonstrated how information management systems, electronic health care records, computerized physician order entry, and various sorts of monitoring systems can fit into workflows and supply nurses with the clinical support they need to supply the best quality, evidence-based care. What impressed me probably the most was the interoperability demonstration, which used patient case studies to exhibit how different systems could exchange information and work together seamlessly. Many sessions emphasized the importance of nurses’ involvement within the decision-making process when evaluating recent technology.

It was refreshing to see healthcare organizations sending their nurse leaders, clinical leaders, and nurse informaticians to this conference to seek out ways to leverage technology to enhance patient care. If you might be all in favour of how technology can improve nursing practice and patient outcomes, or your facility is in search of recent technologies, I highly recommend attending this conference.

Author: Anne Dabrow Woods, MSN, RN, CRNP, ANP-BC