Patient Engagement

The collaboration allows health plans to pay for healthcare-related social services delivered by community benefit organizations.

Microsoft Chief Medical Officer Simon Kos sees a need to improve healthcare and so the software giant is focusing on such areas as AI, population health, public cloud, precision medicine and virtual services.

Brian Eastwood, content strategist at ReviveHealth and a HIMSS19 social media ambassador, says hospitals are deploying the tools in patient rooms to handle low-priority tasks like turning on the TV or closing shades.

David McSwain, interim CMIO at Medical University of South Carolina, says telehealth technology has evolved to the point where virtual visits can now include entire care teams in ways that just aren't possible when clinicians are using phones.

There's game-changing tech on the healthcare horizon, but clinicians need to be on board, says Prof. Jane Griffiths, associate professor and chief nursing information officer at the Dubai Health Authority.

The goals of consumerism and patient-centered care can be at odds, and the former may not be as effective in reducing costs as people thought.

Patients today can engage with their data in ways that create a good relationship with providers -- when the technology doesn't get in the way, claims Joyce Sensmeier, vice president of informatics at HIMSS.

Three things can liberate patient data: The industry must put patients at the center, use standards like HL7 FHIR and get the entire ecosystem working together, say Kari Hedges, SVP at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and Laurent Rotival, SVP at Cambia Health Solutions.

America's Health Insurance Plans called on Congress to set a fixed reimbursement rate based on what insurers pay in a region.

HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf sits down with a panel of luminaries in the field of healthcare to discuss empowering patients and the interoperability rule that gives people full access to their clinical records.