HIMSS 24 Healthcare IT Conference Hot Topics — from AI to Partner Alliances

Technology is making a big impact in healthcare. For example, AI is helping analyze diagnostic test results and images, machine learning is helping personalize treatments, and blockchain is helping track and manage patient records. Nowhere are the healthcare IT trends better demonstrated than at the world’s big three healthcare conferences: ViVE, Arab Health and the recent HIMSS Global Conference and Exhibit.

At HIMSS 24, thousands of healthcare professionals gathered in Orlando, Florida, on March 11 – 15 to discuss the present and future of healthcare IT. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a global advisor, thought leader and member-based society committed to reforming the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology.

Shortly after attending HIMSS 24, Rackspace Technology experts gathered to discuss the conference, including the value of attending healthcare IT conferences, the leading challenges and solutions that healthcare organizations are facing today, key themes and highlights of HIMSS 24, and how Rackspace Technology® is supporting healthcare IT.

During the 30-minute event recap on Cloud Talk Live, Hannah Zipp Duce, Director of Strategic Alliances, and Jason Jones, Global Senior Client Executive-Strategic Accounts, answered questions posed by the moderator, Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist.

Here is an overview of their discussion, which is available to view on demand.

DeVerter: Why attend healthcare IT conferences?

Duce: Conferences help bring the community together so we can share, connect and learn from each other, and deliver better solutions. This year, AI is a hot topic at all the conferences. It’s great to hear about the different use cases for AI in healthcare from organizations around the world.

Jones: The top three healthcare IT conferences are different from each other in a variety of ways, such as location. For example, at the Arab Health conference, they are looking at healthcare delivery in ways that are unique from other regions of the world — including everything from pharmaceutical manufacturing to keeping equipment sterile.

HIMSS is the largest of the three and is global in scope, addressing the information needs of everyone from providers to payers. ViVE is the smallest of the three and it helps educate attendees in unique ways.

DeVerter: What are some of the areas in healthcare where AI is having an impact now?

Duce: AI is improving productivity and accuracy in a wide range of areas within healthcare, such as streamlining appointment scheduling, claims processing, data processing, image analysis and chronic disease management.

Jones: We’re talking about having an opportunity to deliver care to patients in better ways. The administrative side is a great place to start. But when we start looking at AI to deliver care, we’re seeing that clinicians don’t necessarily trust it yet, because they don’t understand an AI application’s black-box decision-making process. Clinicians want to know things like what data was used and where did it come from to achieve the outcome it suggested. If we can provide that insight, then clinicians will be able to trust AI-driven decision-making and use it more often.

DeVerter: How do our alliances with leading companies help deliver valuable solutions?

Duce: When we work with our partners, like Dell® Technologies, a leader in the healthcare IT space, we gain the complexity of proven solutions and the rich knowledge behind it. Then we can help amplify that expertise and deepen it.

Also, while we standardize as much as possible, every customer has unique challenges that need to be solved. Our wide range of partnerships can help us create customized solutions that meet each healthcare organization’s exact IT needs.

DeVerter: What was the biggest takeaway from this year’s three healthcare IT conferences?

Jones: The sheer scale of the healthcare IT ecosystem — which is growing every year. This provides a bigger opportunity for Rackspace Technology to help solve healthcare organization’s challenges. Healthcare providers don’t always have time to find the right solutions for every challenge they face. That’s where we can help — and in the long run, help them deliver better medical care. That’s our mission and our goal.

Duce: For me, it was getting the chance to have multiple conversations with potential and current partners, like Dell. For example, we’re always learning about how the Dell Alliances Healthcare Cloud can be used in new ways. We’re working with them to build more and more capabilities (Explore solutions here). That includes adding interoperability with other partners, like ELLKAY, one of our partners for data archiving, live data exchange and data management.