HiMSS 2009 Chicago Conference Launch

The next week will be an exciting week in Chicago as the HiMSS conference gets underway. Here is a comprehensive list of all new product offerings within the health care systems sphere. It is clear the major themes of virtualization, business intelligence, sustainability, and interoperability are all present in the offerings of the diverse groups of health IT software providers.

Simply viewing the list of products elicits one of the prevailing, fundamental questions in the health care IT arena in the US. How can all of these independent, software providers combine to provide a comprehensive, interoperable US health care system? There are hundreds of different EMR, PHR, etc. software packages along with a variety of different motivations and incentives for providing the varying softwares. It will be essential for large health care providers and health software providers to unite in conferences such as this HiMSS conference to communicate the issues. It will only be through collaboration and a sharing environment that the US health care system will truly be a system that health providers can access anytime and anywhere.

Perhaps that it is why open source is truly gaining ground in the health care arena. The entire platform of open source is based upon the model of sharing and collaboration. The larger the community, the more robust and detailed the software becomes. With the more input, the better the software becomes, and it the community that is making the changes. The changes then reflect the actual needs of the health care providers as opposed to addressing the financials needs of proprietary businesses.

One hopes then that the open source model can penetrate itself into the talks at such conferences as HiMSS. This mentality is clearly the fundamental model needed to help unite the segregated health care environment today in the United States. Proprietary providers can still strive in such an environment, but it is key for these providers to truly understand what business they are in. The health care sphere becomes much more than making a profit. It is ensuring the lives of American people. Therefore, like many large pharmas in their mission statements, it is key to focus on bettering and ensuring the health of human beings. With this changed mindset, proprietary and open source providers alike can work together to build a united, interoperable health system.