Who I met at MGMA 2011

Unlike the HIMSS conference, the MGMA exhibit hall you can actually get through in three days along with spending time participating in the educational presentations and guest speakers. I thought I would share some of the people I met and products I saw. But first I can’t thank both Liz Johnson and Liz Boten in Media Relations & Public Affairs with MGMA enough for my press pass and making the overall conference a great experience. Save the date for MU Live! on the 15th with our guest Rob Tennant of MGMA, we will chat with him about the success of the conference and their future plans.

In the exhibit hall over at the Drummond Group booth I met Gary Isaac and Kyle Meadors both working in EHR Testing. The Drummond Group is one of the current ONC-ATCBs that certifies EHR technology for products in the CMS EHR Incentive program. Drummond is an established testing and certifying company that is new to the EHR market that was solely controlled by CCHIT before Meaningful Use.

I spent a few minutes talking to Paul Murphy at the Canon booth. One automatically thinks of copiers and printers when you see this name but their Business Solutions group has document management and workflow solutions specifically for the healthcare industry. They want you to maximize your return on investments.

Will direct connection for billing claims be the future? Will clearinghouses be a thing of the past? David Barth of Post-n-Track explained their no provider cost, direct connect, cloud based platform for submitting claims.After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

A special thanks to Chris Riley at Mitochon Systems who sponsored the New Media Meetup for us and John Lynn at Healthcare Scene. Check out John’s growing network of HIT blogs.

And finally, I spent some time at the Versus booth with the Director of Marketing, Stephanie Bertschy. She showed me their Versus Advantages system with the new Clearview badge. They claim it is the most advanced real-time locating technology in healthcare. I had to admit it was a cool little device with a powerful integrated system. Locating, tracking, and reporting of patients, assets, or staff is what the badge and the system does. It uses the most precise locating technology available to healthcare by combining invisible infrared (IR) light and the communication capabilities of radio frequency identification (RFID). You can find more details and take a tour on their web site.

Have a good week.