HIMSS update

Well, here I am in Atlanta, where the forecast is for 38 degrees and 100% chance of rain+snow, while back home in Colorado it will be 50 and sunny... now remind me, why did I fly to the 'sunny south' for start of March? Oh yeah, HIMSS! Its here in Atlanta, right now.

I'm in the DSS booth most of the day, #2521. Attendance is good.

Yesterday I had a chance to sit in on a couple of educational sessions including one about the National Patient Safety Goals (some changes there) and what was billed as an "EHR Town Hall Meeting" but was really the same CCHIT pitch we've been seeing for almost a year now.

The Colorado HIMSS chapter had a great reception last night where I was able to catch up with some of the 225 HIMSS members attending from my home state.

Is HIMSS a hotbed of open source enthusiasm? Not yet... but it's a chance for us to talk to people who are just looking for a solution to a problem, looking for a robust EHR, looking for an affordable solution, looking for a way to meaningful use... and show them an open source alternative to the same old model they've grown accustomed to. It opens up some eyes to know that there is robust solution avaialable now, that also lets them mix and match the core capabilites of xvCPRS with specialized add-on modules.

Today I'll be back at the booth, but after having web meetings with a team in Ramsey County, MN that is in the midst of designing their own implementation of vxVistA, which will be interfaced to a new MEDfx practice management / scheduling / billing application.