(Editor’s Note: A long-time HIMSS participant, Ed Daniels tracks the trends in healthcare that have deep roots as well as current conference buzz.)

The HIMSS organization started out back in 1961 as the “Hospital Management Systems Society,” a group of Industrial Engineers, MHAs and MBAs. I attended several of their national conventions in the late ‘70s, and at that time, attendance was only a couple hundred members. The organization really took off in 1986 when the healthcare IT folks were invited to the party. Since that time HIMSS has become a growing force worldwide for the advancement and promotion of healthcare information and management technology. Attendance at this year’s HIMSS topped 25,000.

This year represented a continuation of that growth, and recognition that billions of dollars are being committed by the U.S. federal government to accelerate the pace of healthcare automation. Like Robin, I was interested to see the widespread obsession with Meaningful Use requirements for EHR adoption incentive payments, and agree that the impact of that obsession wasn’t all positive. Meaningful Use is focusing the efforts, but that focus represents trends that were already underway. In fact, some industry pundits have observed that the emphasis on Meaningful Use is absorbing so many resources that true innovation will be stifled for years. I wouldn’t go that far, but Meaningful Use certainly seemed all-consuming.

The first important trend I observed is that EHRs are everywhere. New EHRs and vendors pop up every year, but this year some non-traditional players were promoting their products. For example, Epocrates, known for their suite of smart phone software and tools for clinicians, announced a new EHR product while Quest / MedPlus, the huge clinical laboratory, was promoting their EHR product which is an integrated part of their Care360 product suite. The approximately 200 EHR vendors currently in the market are racing for market share and all seem to be guaranteeing development for Meaningful Use and the achievement of certification for their products.

I also observed that Clinical Decision Support is finally beginning to get traction. The critical questions are how to influence clinical decision making without slowing clinical workflow. No one seems to have figured that out yet, but HIMSS showed that many more ideas and approaches are being tried. Two interesting vendors that are each experimenting with several different approaches are Zynxand Anvita.

To follow up Robin’s observation about the significant presence of wireless companies, the real advancement is that mobile devices are complementary, not revolutionary, products for this audience. While elsewhere (such as www.mobih.org and www.mobilehealthnews.com) mobile device applications are seen as revolutionizing consumer healthcare, at HIMSS mobile devices were seen as extensions of existing enterprise applications.

As always, the real benefit from attending these conferences year after year is the opportunity to network with colleagues and to catch up with a large cross section of the healthcare IT and practitioner communities and find out what is new from their perspective.

Ed Daniels is a consultant, author and entrepreneur based in Golden, Colorado. To read more of his articles, please visit please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan