CHIME12 Fall CIO Forum

CHIME12 Fall CIO Forum Draws Record Attendance as It Celebrates 20-Year Milestone

Each year for the past 20 years, CHIME has provided healthcare CIOs the unique opportunity to collaborate, learn, network and grow professionally.

CHIME welcomed a record 750 attendees to Indian Wells, Calif., for the CHIME12 Fall CIO Forum and 20th anniversary celebration. Held at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort, CHIME12 welcomed three captivating keynote speakers, two plenary sessions with federal officials, 16 peer-led track sessions, three educational sunrise sessions and 75 Foundation focus groups.

Dressed in a leather jacket, flannel shirt and shoulder-length blond wig, CHIME Board Chair Drexel DeFord opened the Forum by taking attendees back in time when grunge was king of the air-waves and gas was a mere $1.13 a gallon. DeFord reflected on CHIME’s early beginnings and the changes over the last two decades before keynote speaker and veteran news anchor Ted Koppel took the stage.

Koppel drew on his 40 years of experience in news reporting and said past lessons learned through recent history seem to be lost on the country’s current leaders. He particularly pointed to the “law of unintended consequences” as seen in politicians’ past reactions to criticism of tough decisions, and said “we must get away from insane partisanship. We must have compromise” to get solve difficult political issues, such as health reform.

He later took questions from the audience where attendees learned Lydon Johnson is his favorite president and that NPR and the BBC are his trusted sources for news.

Wednesday also welcomed a passionate Farzad Mostashari, M.D., who encouraged the CHIME audience to be the driving force behind the meaningful use movement. The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology shared his vision of the future of health information technology – one motivated by patient engagement, HIE and population health management, even sharing a personal story about the near-death of his mother who was a victim of poor care coordination and lack of accessible health information.

“We have to engage the patient and make them want to come back for care; we have to use the available IT tools,” Mostashari said.

Thursday attendees learned about the latest technological advances radically changing the way health information is monitored and delivered, with mobile health advocate Dr. Eric Topol. Supporting mHealth’s power to alleviate the cost of healthcare, Topol said mobile health allows patients to not only be more empowered, but more connected to providers and physicians.

Topol described and even demonstrated numerous wireless gadgets, including a pocket ultrasound and iPhone ECG monitor that publicly displayed his own vital signs on his smartphone. With the vast and numerous mobile health capabilities, consumers will soon be checking their health data as often as they check their emails, he said.

During a special plenary session on Thursday, CHIME attendees had the opportunity to dialog with two top federal rulemakers for the EHR incentive programs, asking questions of Travis Broome, health insurance specialist for CMS, and Steve Posnack, director of the Federal Policy Division at ONC.

Posnack noted that EHR certification is using an “escalator approach” to boost capabilities of technology to higher levels to match rising demands of EHR systems posed by meaningful use objectives. And he didn’t discount that there could be meaningful use stages past Stage 3, if adding additional stages will keep the industry moving forward in optimizing the use of EHR technology.

In Friday’s Sunrise Session, Joy Pritts, a lawyer and the chief privacy officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, urged Forum attendees to foster a culture of privacy and security protection within their organizations; failing that, they face the risk of a variety of adverse consequences, she said.

In the closing keynote session, Adam Savage, host of the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” program, discussed the genesis of the show and offered insights on what it’s taught him about life. Failure and high-stakes challenges change us, and our true character emerges, fused into what we’re going to be, he said.

Education events at the Forum were well-attended and popular. CHIME Foundation Firms held 75 focus groups on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. In addition, members packed 16 educational track sessions led by their peers on Wednesday and Thursday morning to glean useful best practices on various healthcare IT topics; from strategy and leadership to organizational performance improvement.

Sessions that rated highly were asked backed on Friday to present an encore presentation. The top four were: What Are Organizations Looking for in Today’s CIOs?, presented by Linda Hodges and Gary Barnes CHCIO; Managing the Tidal Wave of IT Demand: The Keys to Successful IT Governance, presented by Guy Scalzi, Debe Gash CHCIO, and Jamie Nelson; A Time to Lead: Identifying and Executing New Strategic Business Directions, presented by Edward Marx FCHIME; and The Next Big Thing for CIOs: BI and Information Governance, presented by Violet Shaffer.

Before the Forum officially kicked-off, CHIME held its recreational events with golf and a desert tour. As part of CHIME’s “Giving Back” program, Forum attendees also joined sponsor Vitalize Consulting Solutions to take part in sorting food products and preparing meals for the FIND Food Bank. Additionally, participants in the CHIME12 Fun Run raised almost $4,000 for the Southern California chapter of the Special Olympics.

Administered for the first time electronically, the Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO) examination drew 39 test-takers on Tuesday afternoon.

CHIME also welcomed a record-setting 57 attendees to its 19th offering of the Healthcare CIO Boot Camp. The program’s unique mix of lecture, interactivity, coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities, offered a tremendously valuable and rewarding learning experience. This year the faculty welcomed two new members; Marx and Cara Babachicos CHCIO.