National Health IT Week Sept. 10 – 14
One Voice, One Vision is the tag line for this week of recognition which begins Monday. This will be the 7th year for the National Health IT Week celebration. And each year brings more recognition, partners, events, and activities. They call it a “collaborative forum where public and private healthcare constituents will work in partnership to educate industry and policy stakeholders on the value of health IT for the US healthcare system.” They are right when they say, “there is no better time for the health IT community to come together under one umbrella to raise national awareness!” The collaboration is sponsored by HIMSS, the Institute for eHealth Policy, and CHIME.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a premier association with over 44,000 members, 570 corporate members, and over 170 not-for-profit organizations. For over fify years this group has focussed on providing leadership in health information technology. It is now represented in Europe and Asia.
In 2008 the Institute for e-Health Policy was established within the HIMSS Foundation, as a 501(c)(3) scientific and educational structure. The purpose of the Institute is to “provide educational and research opportunities for public and private sector stakeholders related to e-health policy public policy decisions”. The Institute can be created for major health IT initiatives such as; Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics, National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved, e-Health Public Policy Student Internships and Externships, and National Health IT Week.
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is a premiere executive organization with over 1400 members and over 87 HIT vendors and professional services firms. CHIME members represent today’s CIO and other senior healthcare IT leaders. The association promotes collaboration, exchanging best practices, and addressing professional development needs to its members. Their goal is to “advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve”.
To kick off the week this year, don’t miss the Consumer Health IT Summit to highlight empowering consumers to be better partners in their health. This ONC event will bring together federal leaders including: Todd Park, US CTO and ONC Farzad Mostashari along with leaders from the private and non-profit sectors. Their event promotion says to look for:
- Announcements about new policies and federal initiatives
- Examples of trailblazing companies that are enabling widespread consumer access to health information
- Compelling consumer tools that help people to make use of their data
- Creative approaches to motivate and support consumer engagement in health
- Exciting developments related to the “Blue Button”
The event will be held in the Hubert H. Humphrey Building Washington DC on Monday from 10am to 3:30pm ET.
For a full listing of the weeks events see their schedule.