HIMSS launches autumn conference on Connected Health
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is launching a new conference, which will take place between November 8-10 and will be split into three distinct summits: mHealth, exploring what is new in mobile, telehealth and connected health; Cyber Security, to discuss health sector cyber threats, protection, detection, response and recovery; and Population Health, to discuss the management of health issues in growing populations.
The annual mHealth Summit, put on by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, is getting some company. This year, HIMSS is debuting the Cyber Security Summit and the Population Health Summit; together the three are being labeled the Connected Health Conference.

“We’re creating an umbrella concept of connected health, and mobile certainly fits squarely in that,” HIMSS CEO H. Stephen Lieber told MedCity News. The three summits will run concurrently Nov. 8-11 in National Harbor, Md., and one registration fee covers the entire Connected Health Conference.

“We’re leveraging a very strong anchor that we’ve already got,” Lieber said. The sixth-annual mHealth Summit drew 3,500 people to the banks of the Potomac River, just outside Washington, D.C., last December. Combining events lowers the financial risk of starting up two new meetings, Lieber said.

Chicago-based HIMSS has seen a huge uptick in interest around both security and population health this year. Lieber noted that the Cybersecurity Command Center was the second-busiest special exhibit area on the HIMSS15 show floor, behind only the Interoperability Showcase. The conference took place just a couple of weeks after Premera Blue Cross disclosed that it was the victim of a malicious attack.

While some may question the wisdom of sticking with the mHealth Summit name as digital health and, yes, connected health, grow in popularity, Lieber said that the subject of mobile health “is still huge,” regardless of the appellation. The mHealth Summit has and will continue to feature telehealth and wearable technologies, in addition to mobile devices and apps, he said.

HIMSS expects to release the agenda for the Connected Health Conference on Aug. 14. Lieber said a Vanderbilt University Medical Center speaker will be among the highlights of the Population Health Summit. Several federal agencies will be represented at both new meetings.

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