HIMSS Conference- A Fresh Prospective on Healthcare IT

With the passage of Healthcare Reform by Congress, there is a lot of talk about healthcare in the IT business community.  Healthcare already accounts for about $2 trillion in federal spending each year; almost one out of every seven dollars spent in the U.S is related to healthcare.  It looks as if billions more will be funneled into the healthcare IT segment, thanks to the new federal initiatives requiring healthcare providers to maintain medical records electronically.  This explains why almost every technology vendor is evaluating and exploring opportunities within the health care sector.

We sent Sam G. to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Expo (HIMSS) in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month to do some investigating.

Sam spent three jam-packed days touring the World Congress Center in Atlanta and has supplied us with the following account of the conference:

“The conference was amazing! It took up almost the entire World Congress Center venue. Although it’s not as vast as the Orange County Convention Center, it is still very large, and the exhibits took up every square inch of space at this show.  There were 250+ exhibitors split between two different exhibit halls, and it was almost impossible to completely tour one hall in a day!

I could not help but notice an extraordinarily large number of people from all over the world, about 27,000, I was told.  This is by far the largest conference I have ever attended, and a much bigger crowd is expected next year at the 10th annual conference in Orlando, Florida.

This show revealed a side of the healthcare industry I had never seen before.  There was a remarkable mix of companies that supply thousands of products and services.  While companies such as Microsoft and Google made a very strong presence, there were companies I had never heard of prior to the event.  Some of these names I would have never thought serviced the healthcare industry”.

“National Cash Register had one of the largest exhibits, and they told me that 50% of their revenue is now driven by the health care industry.”

We want to thank Sam for his synopsis of the HIMSS Conference.  He came back with valuable information about the companies that are now branching out to the health care industry and ideas on how to best capitalize on the trend.

Technology trends within the health care industry point toward increased use of Electronic Health Records/ Electronic Medical Records (EHR/EMR) by the hospitals and health care providers.  As EHR/EMR becomes more prevalent in the industry, security and availability become more of a concern.  Organizations are ushering in new technology like Cloud Servers to assist with business continuity planning initiatives and implement heightened security protocols to strengthen the privacy of patient records.

As the times change, so does Atlantic.Net!  We welcome the opportunity to come together with the health care world to provide the most secure and cost-effective IT solutions.  We are well-positioned to help EHR/EMR providers, insurance, billing, and even medical practices outsource their IT infrastructure.  Atlantic.Net stands ready to meet this increasing demand to help ease the hassles associated with IT infrastructure with services like HIPAA Cloud Hosting.  As a SAS70 certified, HIPAA, and HITECH-compliant Data Center, we have the right experience, security, and technical credentials to provide fully managed and turnkey solutions to the health care industry.  Even with the new HITECH Act passed in February 2010, we are infrastructure-ready to help providers cope with regulatory challenges and complexities.

With this valuable information from Sam on the growing demand for IT in health care and HIPAA Hosting, I am certain we will make an appearance at the Orlando Expo next year.  We look forward to getting ourselves in front of this growing industry and welcome the opportunities it will bring!