Looking Back, and Giving Back, at HIMSS 2017

Posted on behalf of Christine Duval, Marketing Coordinator

Coming from a completely different industry before beginning my career at Summit Healthcare a little over six months ago, I had never been to, or even heard of the HIMSS Conference before. I had to google what it stood for, and what it was! –

HIMSS, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, is a cause-based non-profit which provides thought leadership, community building, professional development, public policy, and events. HIMSS North America represents 64,000 individual members, 640 corporate members, and over 450 non-profit organizations. Thousands of volunteers work with HIMSS to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, access, and value of healthcare through IT.

The HIMSS conference brings together over 40,000 health IT professionals, clinicians, executives and vendors from around the world. Educational sessions, world-class speakers, cutting-edge health IT products and powerful networking are hallmarks of this industry-leading conference.

Learning about, planning for, and coordinating the logistics of the HIMSS 2017 annual conference quickly consumed much of my time, and I couldn’t wait to finally get to Orlando to see the culmination of all my hard work, and witness firsthand what all the hype was about. One of the best pieces of advice I received from a colleague who had been numerous times – bring comfortable shoes!

The HIMSS Conference has gotten so large that there are only a few conference centers in the country that are actually big enough to hold it. This year it was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Florida – which was great because it offered me a nice little getaway from the cold, snowy, Boston winter. With over 50,000 people in attendance, I admit it was a little overwhelming at first! Walking for what felt like a mile (and probably was) through the conference hall and the exhibitor floor, I was surrounded by thousands of other healthcare professionals like myself, thought leaders, industry experts, and the largest corporations in the industry.

With so many people in attendance, it provided great opportunities for Summit Healthcare. We were able to reconnect with countless customers and business partners, and in my case, finally put some faces to their names! With every interested party that came to the booth, we spread a little more knowledge about Summit Healthcare; who we are, what we do, and showcase some of our hot new products (Summit Exchange and Provider Alert).

Although Summit Healthcare is known for our integration and automation technologies, many don’t realize the various ways we strive to give back our communities. This year, we gave out a plethora of informational handouts, popcorn, pens, thumb drives, etc. but we also offered a different kind incentive to visit our booth this year. We committed to making a $5 donation for everyone who stopped by our booth wearing a Summit Healthcare branded bracelet that we had sent out prior to the conference.

The charity of choice this year was the Wounded Warrior Project. The Wounded Warrior Project supports and empowers over 99,000 service members who incurred a physical or mental injury, illness, or wound, co-incident to their military service on or after September 11, 2001. The organization provides free programs and services to address the needs of wounded veterans and fill gaps in government care. They offer a variety of programs and services including mental health and wellness, physical health and wellness, career and benefits counseling, and support for the most severely injured.

Summit Healthcare’s commitment to all healthcare organizations, ranging from the hospital, to the physician clinic, and the healthcare industry in general is to provide an ever evolving, easy to use, line of products and services to help bring their systems together. Our integration technology enables our clients to maximize their investment in their applications, and significantly increase productivity throughout their healthcare enterprise. The end goal of everything we do as a company, is to enable better patient care. It is an honor to be able to directly give back to such an amazing organization with a similar goal.