EHRs, EDC, and the Hum of HIMSS

I had the opportunity to visit the exhibit floor at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) at Chicago's McCormick Place in early April, and it was quite an eye opening experience. At a time when most businesses are experiencing cutbacks, extreme austerity or worse, the strains of "Happy Days are Here Again" could be felt across the exhibit floor, as the entire health IT sector contemplates how they may benefit from the billions of dollars to be invested in health IT as part of the massive U.S. economic stimulus recovery plan.

The show featured over 800 mostly exuberant exhibitors, brandishing products ranging from intelligent hospital beds, mobile computing communications and storage devices, and computers to laboratory, radiology, and surgical devices.

The wide range of software products being offered included, of course, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, along with practice management, nursing, retail and scheduling systems, data information exchanges, telemedicine, financial accounting, human resources, and systems for cardiology, dietary management, emergency medical rooms, labs, and pharmacies.

And of course, the floor also featured a wide range of consultants offering strategy, system design, system development, implementation, disaster recovery, financial management, data management, process engineering, legal, risk assessment, compliance, training, outsourcing, and analysis services. All of these fighting for the attention of the estimated 25,000 festive and frantic but frequently exhausted attendees.