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Pioneer ACO Update: Q&A With Health IT Leaders from Eastern Maine Healthcare System
In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the names of 32 health organizations selected to participate in their Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model, which launched just over one month ago on Jan. 1.
Chosen from 80 applicants, these 32 Pioneer ACOs are testing several new payment arrangements, which HHS estimates could save more than $1 billion over five years and improve care for 860,000 Medicare beneficiaries. Organizations selected (.doc) are truly at the forefront of the movement toward a new coordinated delivery model designed to reduce health costs and improve the quality of care patients receive.
See: Are ACOs Like Chasing Unicorns? 32 Health Systems Don’t Believe So
With the help of Andrea Littlefield (@BangorBeacon), I asked health IT leaders from Pioneer ACO Eastern Maine Healthcare System to share their experiences participating in the program, about the IT infrastructure they have in place to coordinate the delivery of care, and any advice they would give other health IT professionals working toward creating an ACO.
EMHS’ Pioneer ACO includes three of the system’s member hospitals: Eastern Maine Medical Center, The Aroostook Medical Center, and Inland Hospital.
Catherine J. Bruno, EMHS vice president and CIO
Special thanks to EMHS’ Catherine J. Bruno, FACHE, vice president and chief information officer; and Ralph Swain, corporate director of information systems, for collaborating and providing the following answers.
When Eastern Maine Healthcare System was selected to be one of the 32 Pioneer ACOs, what was your immediate reaction? (Was it complete celebration, full of high fives and champagne toasts? Or was it, ‘OK here we go, let’s get to work… there’s no looking back now?’)
We are very excited about the opportunity to participate in the Pioneer ACO. I think our reactions were a mix of what you mention – we were elated, we celebrated, and then rolled up our sleeves and got to work. As a healthcare leader, EMHS looks forward to helping shape the future of healthcare delivery and reimbursement strategies.
Prior to Eastern Maine Healthcare System’s selection as a Pioneer ACO, a technology foundation obviously had to be in place. Did EMHS form or participate in an HIE prior to your acceptance to the Pioneer program? Are all connected providers participating in the HIE also participating in the ACO?
Ralph Swain, EMHS corporate director of information systems
EMHS is the lead organization for the Bangor Beacon Community grant (received in May 2010). Through Beacon, we have been able to build upon our already strong foundation in health information technology. We work directly with HealthInfoNet (HIN) – Maine’s statewide health information exchange and one of our Beacon partners – to improve connections to the exchange as well as expand the data collected through HIN to assist our practices in providing more efficient, better managed care to their patients, while reducing costs.
EMHS affiliate Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) was one of the first hospitals to participate in HIN’s demonstration project beginning in 2008.
Due to the constraints of the Pioneer ACO rules, not all of our Bangor Beacon Community partners were eligible to participate in the first phase of ACO. However, we are working with many of our EMHS affiliated practices in Bangor (EMMC), Waterville (Inland), and Presque Isle (The Aroostook Medical Center – TAMC) – a total of 9,000 potential patients – to provide more efficient, better managed care to these patients.
All of these providers have electronic medical records and are, or will be, connected to the HIE.
With different providers involved in the ACO, how are technology decisions made? Is there a designated lead for IT decisions? How are the operational expenses for the IT infrastructure funded by the ACO? Are proceeds from the shared savings used to support the IT infrastructure?
Currently, providers associated with the Pioneer ACO are largely employed practices and therefore work with the same technology platform. EMHS has policies that govern the selection of systems that encourage the use of core vendor systems. A Corporate Director of Information Systems (IS) is a member of the ACO team and is coordinating the technology discussions and decisions with the IS Department. Marginal costs clearly will be required for the ACO, will be included in the ACO budget and are planned to be covered by shared savings.
Are there any immediate IT infrastructure gaps that will need to be filled to address ACO quality measures?
The primary care practices use a common electronic medical record (EMR) that has an associated disease registry. This will be used to capture the 26 clinical quality measures. We are also working with the vendor of that application to ensure that all measures are captured.
Even though the ACO loosened the requirement for having ONC-certified EHRs, will most of the providers in the EMHS ACO have a certified EHR?
All providers currently use a certified EHR.
What steps are in place to ensure patient data safety and that interfaces remain operational?
EMHS IS has a comprehensive policy and process for ensuring the security of patient information that will be applied for ACO activities, as well. These policies include required data use agreements and business associate agreements with outside vendors. Transfer of data to any outside parties will be done with secure file transfer processes.
What has been the biggest Health IT challenge so far?
The ability to visibly identify managed health members in the major clinical systems on an ongoing basis has proven to be more challenging than it initially appeared. We are currently inventorying the full set of required capabilities to discover and prioritize gaps.
What advice do you give other health IT professionals who ask what IT steps they need to take to be prepared to participate in an ACO?
Start now to define the required ACO processes and the required systems capabilities, then define the system functionality that will be required to start out. We would be in a difficult position if it were not for the work done within the Beacon Communities grant. This experience provided us with many lessons learned and best practices, specifically regarding data management and evaluation, workflow, and practice improvement.
Lastly, how much discussion do you have with your staff about the how ACOs are changing the delivery of healthcare?
Since receiving the designation, we are communicating on a regular basis with our employees around the system about ACOs and how healthcare delivery is changing. We want our staff to understand the role EMHS is taking in advancing new payment models and the way we deliver healthcare to our patients.
Simultaneously, we are initiating a new employee health plan, called “In System Rewards,” which uses many of the lessons learned through our Bangor Beacon Community. In System Rewards will lead to improved care for our employee/patients who have chronic diseases by adding care coordination services and more closely monitoring those patients.
Healthcare Technology: A Competitive Advantage in Improving the Patient Experience
With Meaningful Use requirements, connecting to Health Information Exchanges, coordinating data flow in Accountable Care Organizations, updating devices to ICD-10 codes and general interoperability projects, there is a tremendous amount of work going on in Health IT. With very significant deadlines to accomplish these vital initiatives, it would be easy for IT managers to develop tunnel vision and become project managers, checking off one task and moving on to the next.
Each of these projects to modernize the health system has tremendous potential to improve patient care, which, in turn, will likely improve patients’ perceptions of the care they receive because the care will be higher quality and better coordinated among providers. Patients, in turn, will be (everyone hopes) happier “customers.”
Jason A. Wolf, PhD, executive director of The Beryl Institute.
Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Jason Wolf and the interesting work he does as executive director of The Beryl Institute, which will host its annual Patient Experience Conference April 25-27 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Jason is a passionate advocate for improving the “patient experience” in healthcare, and he travels the country visiting different hospitals to see successful initiatives firsthand, and shares his findings with the Institute’s member organizations.
With so much of healthcare’s focus on changes on the IT front, I thought it would be good to ask Jason what he thinks about the technology changes and how they influence the patient experience.
Q. What exactly do hospitals mean when they talk about the “patient experience?”
Wolf: At The Beryl Institute, our commitment is to be the global community of practice and the premier thought leader on improving the patient experience. In beginning this journey we discovered that many were focused on two critical healthcare actions – patient centeredness and service excellence.
The reality of these two paths is that they have both made positive contributions to the care setting, but they only represented segments of the larger perspective and effort needed to drive an unparalleled experience for patients and their families. Patient experience encompasses the best of these actions, the important nature of quality and patient safety, and the recognition that experience starts well before a clinical encounter and continues well after the patient leaves the care setting.
To create a more standard perspective on this key component of healthcare success, we brought together healthcare leaders from across the U.S. to contribute to framing a definition for the patient experience. The result, a definition the Institute suggests healthcare organizations either adopt or adapt:
“We define the patient experience as the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.”
The key elements of this definition: that patient experience happens at every interaction, it is grounded in the culture of an organization, it is represented in the perceptions of the patient and their family, and it happens across the entire care curriculum. This also has significant implications for healthcare technology as well.
Q. With increasing emphasis on Electronic Health Records, Meaningful Use, Health Information Exchanges and Accountable Care Organizations, are you worried that the end goal of improving patient care may be lost during the process?
Wolf: I believe that technology and other organizational initiatives, especially related to current healthcare policies, are not an impediment to better patient care or overall experience. I see these as potential tools to support an increased patient experience effort if we are willing to recognize their important role in creating a greater focus on the patient in the care equation.
I have seen some use policy as an excuse for the inability to act on patient experience, but in fact, better record keeping, more efficient systems, expanded access and overall coordinated effort should all be positive contributing factors in our ability to improve patient experience overall. I believe a commitment comes down to leadership choice, clear organizational objectives and unwavering systems of accountability.
It is interesting to see that the introduction of the Healthcare Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) sparked an increase in focus on experience, but it was with the implementation of the Value-based Purchasing program, through which experience (as measured by HCAHPS) is now part of the overall reimbursement equation for healthcare organizations, that created real action. The bottom-line implications of patient experience became clear for most healthcare leaders and drove a new level of effort.
What is missing from this singular focus is that there are many more financial considerations and a significant case to be made for taking action on the patient experience. A focus on patient experience should not be considered only as a result of policy and technology requirements, but rather these should be used as the means by which to make more positive improvements overall.
Q: From your experience, how does technology influence patient care in the exam room? How can caregivers ensure that it is a positive factor?
Wolf: If we approach patient experience from the definition above, technology can definitely serve as a positive contributor to improving patient experience at multiple touch points across the continuum of care. Some standard technological improvements in the care setting that expedite reporting, create the ease of capturing data, or provide more efficient access to information, all create more opportunity for quality time at the bedside.
The implementation of interactive technologies that can be used in the engagement and education of patients directly in the care setting have also brought significant opportunities for impacting patient experience. Beyond the clinical setting, better scheduling technologies at the front end and the use of CRM tools to support post care follow-up can play a role across the patient journey.
The bottom line is focusing on what healthcare organizations are trying to achieve through a clear definition, understanding the implications for action and inaction based on policy, and recognizing the importance of visible leadership commitment and support is essential. These are the building blocks of any effective patient experience effort.
But it may very well be the bold choices of healthcare organizations to implement and apply technology in creative ways with an eye on the patient experience that provide the greatest competitive advantage and most positive impact on the patient experience overall.
Major Milestones – White Coat & Hands-on Work
After Block 1 was completed, the white coat ceremony was held. This is where I received the coat that I will wear throughout medical school. It was exciting to get my first white coat, as was seeing my fellow friends get “coated” and meeting everyone’s family.
Also, after Block 1 ended, we started the cadaver lab, which is something I have never experienced before. The closest I got to dissection was when I was younger. It was during my senior year of high school, and it didn’t involve a human. This experience was completely different than anything I have dealt with before.
Being able to dissect a real human being is a truly remarkable experience, and I am so thankful for the person who donated their body so I could learn through this experience.
All of second block involved the musculoskeletal system, and we got to see most of the muscles, arteries, and nerves that we take for granted every single day. Trying to differentiate between nerves, arteries, and veins was one of the hardest parts of the lab. Anatomy books show you that the arteries are red, veins are blue, and nerves are yellow. When you open up the body, it looks nothing like the anatomy books. The hardest part is that every cadaver is unique and, therefore, distinguishing which artery, vein, and nerve you are trying to find can be very difficult.
I am now in Block 3, which is the neurology block. We recently took out the human brain, and I held it in my hands. It was amazing to hold the human brain in my hands, all this person’s memories, experiences, and stories were in this brain, and it was truly a humbling experience.
Life continues. This is true in more ways than I imagined. For me, it continues on my path to become a physician. For the human body I am working with, it continues as a way to learn. I am very grateful for both.
Six Questions to Consider About Merging a CCD
Several questions can arise when considering whether to parse the data of a CCD document from a remote facility and merge it into the local EHR. HIEs are spurring increased emphasis on the use of CCD documents to exchange information among facilities, so it would be ideal to have consistent practices regarding the merging of the received data into the existing EHR. With the CCD seen as the vehicle for EHR-to-EHR communication, the questions below raise some concerns as to how this vehicle should be utilized.
1. Is having the CCD available as an attachment sufficient?
With some EHR implementations, the receiving system may not be able to support the import of the CCD. Or, the EHR vendor may chose to optionally import only some of the data, such as allergies and medications, but not the rest of the data. The provider may also be given the option to select what data is imported during the initial implementation of the EHR system.
Having a human readable CCD available to the physician is obviously preferable to not having any data available at all. But is simply having the human readable CCD sufficient? It may be sufficient in some cases, but it is definitely not optimal. With the use of clinical decision support systems and quality of care analytics, having level 3 coded entries imported into the EHR is the only way to take advantage of such healthcare tools that utilize the stored data.
2. Who is liable that the data is correct?
Physicians can be hesitant to accept other provider’s data into their EHR because they assume they will become liable for it. This opens a large legal question as to who is responsible if the patient is treated incorrectly based on bad data that was not even collected by the physician’s medical staff. Receiving providers do not like the idea of supporting the imported data because they only truly trust what was directly input into their EHR by their staff.
Separating the CCD as a human readable attachment draws a clear distinction as to what information was entered in-house, and what is relayed from an outside source. If the CCD is parsed and merged, it would be preferable from the physician’s point-of-view to have this data clearly distinguished as received from an outside source with the ability to identify and contact that source.
3. What audit trail exists for the data?
The ONC has specific guidelines for audit tracking in its EHR Certification process. But how do those audit trail standards apply to imported data? A CCD does not include all the details about who entered every entry, and whether the entry was ever edited. From a legal perspective, some states also have specific laws pertaining to re-disclosure. These laws define how imported information must be tracked and protected.
When data is imported, the EHR system should be as detailed as possible about the source of all the data. The CCD audit trail is limited to the participant information included in the header of the document. At a minimum, this participant information must be tagged to each entry as it is parsed and merged with existing data.
4. What if there is conflicting data?
The reconciliation of the data can be a difficult routine for vendors to implement as part of the process for importing CCD data into existing EHR data. Sorting out duplicate data is the first logical step, but resolving conflicting data or displaying it in an effective manner can be a difficult task to perform.
At a minimum, if the resolution of the conflict cannot be determined, the physician must be made aware of the conflict so they can do their own analysis of the situation. Ideally, during import an alert would be sent to the staff so the patient, and/or responsible parties, could be contacted to ensure the correct data is represented in the system. This puts a large burden on the EHR vendor to accommodate a unique workflow that can be utilized for resolution.
5. Is someone responsible if the data is not merged and a bad decision is made because of the lack of data?
Clinical decision support systems will not work if the data is not in the EHR. What if a medication interaction was not flagged because the medication section of a CCD was not imported into the EMR, and that interaction resulted in harm to the patient?
Clinical decision support systems and quality-driven analytics are important tools in the changing healthcare landscape. Level 3 CCD data, in the form of coded entries, support the use of these tools, which aim to provide better patient care through the use of more available data. The decision to only use the CCD in a human readable format, rather than importing the data, directly impacts the effectiveness of the tools.
6. What is best for patient care?
The final question is undoubtedly the most important. The quality of care for the patient should ultimately be the driving force in whether the CCD is imported into the receiving EHR system. On one hand, if the imported data simply clouds the existing data because of poor reconciliation or a failure to clearly indicate the source, then the “easy” approach of simply making a human readable format would be superior. But, given the capability to cleanly import the data and clearly mark its source, there is little doubt that importing and merging data would lead to superior clinical outcomes.
Forget the complexity of the CDA format and the difficulties of parsing, mapping, and reconciliation. The politics behind actually importing the data for real patient care is the big hurdle that needs to be overcome. Issues behind liability and re-disclosure need to be addressed so the tools that enable a higher quality of care, based on coded data, can be utilized to their full extent. Maybe future stages of Meaningful Use will provide the guidance.
This article originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of HL7 News, the newsletter of Health Level Seven International. Republished with permission.
Join us For Another ‘Special Edition’ #HITsm TweetChat. This Week’s Topic: ACOs
Join us online Friday, Jan. 19 at 11 a.m., CT, for a “Special Edition” of our weekly #HITsm TweetChat. We asked the Colin Konschak, Shane Danaher and Phillip Felt from DIVURGENT, a national healthcare consultanting firm with offices in Dallas and Virginia Beach, Va., to join us for this week’s chat and to help develop the chat questions on Accountable Care Organizations.
#HITsm T1: What steps have your organization taken toward establishing a public- or private-sector #ACO? If none, what discussion has occurred?
#HITsm T2: What #HealthIT initiatives have been started to support work toward operationalizing an #ACO in your organization?
#HITsm T3: Clinical integration programs are a necessary precursor to #ACOs. Does your organization have HIT-focused clinical integration?
#HITsm T4: How can your #EMR be used to support population health reporting requirements of an #ACO?
See Colin Komschak’s blog post on Pioneer ACOs, “Are ACOs Like Chasing Unicorns? 32 Health Organizations Don’t Believe So.”
It’s easy to join the Twitter conversation by logging in to the #HITsm TweetChat Room, which automatically keeps you in the conversation by tagging all tweets with the #HITsm hash tag.
If you are unable to access the TweetChat room, simply search in Twitter for #HITsm and you can follow the conversation. To contribute, simply tag your tweets with #HITsm so they can be seen by chat participants.
BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits: An Idea for mHealth App Success
Already abandoned your New Year resolutions?
We have a hard time changing our behavior. By now, approximately 60 percent of us have already abandoned our New Year resolutions. One study shows that 35 percent of those who made resolutions, never even started them.
Not surprisingly, the most popular resolutions are health related — for weight loss, exercise and quitting smoking. With the number of health apps soaring, are we better equipped to stick to our resolutions? Are mobile health apps helping people change their behavior?
Chances are you also abandoned the health apps you downloaded.
According to Flurry, a research firm that collects big data on mobile applications, 38 percent of mobile apps are not used after the first day, and 90 percent are abandoned after 6 months. Coincidentally, the 90 percent abandonment after 6 months also correlates to New Year’s resolutions!
Pew Research reports that for downloaded health apps, 26 percent are only used once. With so much failure, how can mHealth design better for success?
Tiny habits for big change
If you’ve been on Twitter lately, you may have noticed a growing wave of people signing up for BJ Fogg’s one week experiment, 3 Tiny Habits. BJ Fogg is Stanford innovator and psychologist focused on behavior change. Hundreds have succeeded to change their behavior using Fogg’s Tiny Habits, including many people in the health community as well as tech stars, e.g., VC Bryce Roberts, “Big Change from Tiny Habits.”
I participated in 3 Tiny Habits the week of December 11th, and can also testify that the simple system does work!
According to BJ Fogg, when you know how to create tiny habits, you can change your life forever: “I’ve explored human behavior for 18 years, mostly at Stanford University. I’ve learned that many assumptions about habits are wrong.”
He says you have to forget about motivation. Forget about 21 days. Forget “one habit at a time.” Nothing matters as much as taking baby steps repeatedly over time, just like a baby learns to walk. You commit to 30 minutes for only one week.
A typical session:
–Saturday or Sunday (12 min): You learn about habits and you select 3 new habits you want to start.
–Monday – Friday (3 min): You do your 3 habits, and you respond to a daily message from BJ.
The formula for success: After I do “X,” I will do “Y”
Fogg’s program focuses on tiny new habits linked to existing behaviors or habits you already do throughout a normal day. For example, “AFTER I brush my teeth, I WILL floss one tooth.”
A big success for me was: “After I get out of bed, I will put on my running shoes.” Notice I didn’t commit to running or even walking, just putting on my running shoes. The result? I was considerably more active throughout the whole day. As someone who works at a computer most of the day, this tiny habit got me outside several times a day and, eventually, I started a regular walking ritual. Success!
BJ explains, “You can’t force this connection, just like you can’t force a small plant to grow. But you can speed it up by experiencing good feelings about what you’re doing, at the precise moment you’re doing it. For example, when I do a new tiny behavior, I think (and feel) ‘Victory! I’m getting better.’ I know that sounds goofy, but it works.”
Also, for Tiny Habits to work, do not pick a habit you want to stop. However, you can reframe it. For example, Bryce Roberts wanted to cut down on his phone usage at home. His solution: switch his phone to airplane mode after he got off the train.
Another plus was BJ’s daily encouragement. At first, I was surprised. Was BJ personally responding to email responses? Apparently, I wasn’t the only one wondering. He twittered, “It’s me, sitting at the keyboard, responding to people. It’s fun, and I learn stuff.” His interest in your success is sincere and palpable.
To join a Tiny Habits session, you can sign up here: http://bit.ly/apply3tinyhabits.
If This, Then That: IFTTT
The beauty of Tiny Habits is that Fogg designed the whole program in less than four hours with no special technology. The challenge to mHealth developers? Apply this theory of behavior change to one health challenge and develop an app that nets healthy behavior!
A similar successful concept was developed by a “two-person” startup with a productivity tool called IFTTT, which stands for “If This, Then That.” IFTTT users simply connect two Internet services together to respond to triggers, under the construct that if this happens, then do that. “IFTTT” just received $1.585 milllion in funding.
Inspired mHealth developers interested in designing for behavior change, click to view BJ Fogg’s new behavior model.
Other resources by BJ Fogg:
A Peek Inside IHE Connectathon
The IHE Connectathon event for 2012 was held in Chicago last week. Connectathon allows vendors from healthcare IT to test their ability to support IHE profiles, which are critical to standardizing communications across HIEs, ACOs, and across regions. Here are a few observations from my first-time participation at Connectathon:
Industry Buy-in
It was apparent from the attendance at Connectathon that there is broad-based buy-in from the healthcare IT industry. Critical mass has definitely been achieved. From large HIS vendors, to EHR vendors, to integration engines, to those targeted specifically at HIE solutions, everyone who is anyone in healthcare IT was represented at Connectathon 2012.
Replicating the Health IT Environment
The detail that went into closely replicating a real-world healthcare IT environment was reassuring. From a mock Web-based patient registration tool, to simulating multiple registries throughout a region, every effort was made to present an environment that posed similar connectivity challenges to those in a real-world setting.
When appropriate, testing also required verification across multiple partners, helping to ensure that the connections would be robust enough to be implemented in a variety of settings.
Increasing the Expectations
Hurdles for passing many of the tests seem to be increasing and becoming more difficult. In particular, we observed that some of our tests that passed in 2011, failed in 2012 using the same exact solution. This is because verification tools are becoming more robust and checking for more criteria every year. Some of the long-time participants commented that the criteria and number of enforced items has become more stringent every year.
IHE Connectathon is a positive happening within the healthcare IT industry. It is a time when competitive vendors can put aside their differences and join together to ensure that interoperability is progressing forward for the good of the industry. We tested with our competitors, they offered some advice and troubleshooting, and we did the same.
Competitors will vigorously compete for business every day of the year, but it was refreshing to see a week put aside to advance industry connectivity.
Are ACOs Like Chasing Unicorns? 32 Health Systems Don’t Believe So
As an author of a book focused on planning for Accountable Care Organizations, I’ve heard from all too many providers and consultants who believe the concept will never take off.
Although I remain cautiously optimistic about this new care delivery model, I am very much looking forward to the results of the Pioneer ACO program.
As you may be aware, the Pioneer ACO program is the latest initiative from CMS’s Innovation Center. The goal is to assess the impact of different payment mechanisms within organizations that have already proven they can accept risk and act as an ACO. More to the point, the goal is to provide better care to Medicare beneficiaries and reduce Medicare’s costs.
The participants have been selected and the program begun as of January 1 of this year. CMS was looking for up to 30 provider organizations to start the program and they ended up selecting 32 (out of more than 80 applicants) from 18 states. They estimate that, if successful, the program will save $1.1 billion over the next five years.
The first two years of the Pioneer ACO Model will test the shared savings payment policy with generally higher levels of shared savings and risk for Pioneer ACOs than the current levels in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.
In year three of the program, participating ACOs that have shown a specified level of savings over the first two years will be eligible to move a substantial portion of their payments to a population-based model, which is designed to financially reward patient care when specific quality-of-care benchmarks have been met.
So, why am I excited? Because it won’t be too long before CMS answers the question many have been asking: “Are we chasing unicorns?” Until then, we only know that more than 80 provider organizations don’t believe so, and 32 have been charged with answering the question once and for all.
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Colin Konschak, RPh, MBA, FHIMSS, FACHE, is a managing partner with DIVURGENT and leads its Advisory Services Practice. He is an accomplished executive with over 17 years of experience in quality service, account management, strategic planning and alliance management. His healthcare experience encompasses pharmaceutical, payer, information technology, and provider industries.
He is a co-author of a recently released textbook on the ACO/CIN topic titled, “Clinical Integration: A Roadmap to Accountable Care.”
Join us for a ‘Special Edition’ HIMSS #HITsm TweetChat, Jan. 13
Join us online Friday, Jan. 13 at 11 a.m., CT, for a “Special Edition” of our weekly #HITsm TweetChat. We collaborated with HIMSS (Heathcare Information and Management Systems Society) staff members to develop this week’s topics to help provide information to the Twitter community and to help build momentum for their upcoming 2012 annual conference, Feb. 20-24, in Las Vegas.
If you work in health IT or work for a health IT vendor, you know the importance of the annual HIMSS conference. It’s a great opportunity to learn about the greatest initiatives and challenges in health IT, to see firsthand some of the newest software and mHealth offerings, and to expand your knowledge base in various educational sessions.
And, as an added bonus to the #HITsm online community – especially those attending the conference – we’ll be hosting a “live” TweetChat at the conference in the HIMSS social media center. More information on that chat will be discussed during the TweetChat and posted here as we get closer to the conference.
Special thanks to HIMSS Social Media Manager Cari McLean for her help in developing this week’s four chat topics.
It’s easy to join the Twitter conversation by logging in to the #HITsm TweetChat Room, which automatically keeps you in the conversation by tagging all tweets with the #HITsm hash tag.
If you are unable to access the TweetChat room, simply search in Twitter for #HITsm and you can follow the conversation. To contribute, simply tag your tweets with #HITsm so they can be seen by chat participants.
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