Post-HIMSS Debrief

Wow! Can I say best HIMSS ever?

This year we had Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, keynote the event. This year was the first time Microsoft showcased products specific to Healthcare with Azyxxi. This year we took a big step in the direction of helping the industry move to a new generation of applications and adopt Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Software as a Service (SaaS) with the official launch of the Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint (have you checked the number of downloads on SolShare?).

This year we also took another step in helping consumers and patients make better, informed decisions about their health with the acquisition of Medstory. This year we released the first reference implementation of the Connected Health Framework reference architecture as community project, the Health Connection Engine. We have big plans for HCE so stay tuned and get involved with the community.

If you stopped by the Microsoft booth, this year we also had the biggest booth in Microsoft's history with HIMSS with a ton of space dedicated to partners doing incredible things on the Microsoft platform.

This year was also the most adventurous travel to HIMSS for me and a number of other people :-)

Due to flight problems in Dallas, we ended up renting a car and driving 8 hours from Dallas DFW to New Orleans.

It was a fun experience when I think about it now :-)

We had a pod dedicated to the Connected Health Framework that was staffed by me and a few other folks from Microsoft. In the picture below you can see the pod and two fellow technical strategists: Ilia Fortunov (left), Architect for EMEA, and Randy Fusco (right), Technical Strategist for the US Healthcare Provider industry.

Planning for next HIMSS will likely start in September, so we don't have much time to rest on our laurels. Need to go back and think about how we make next year's HIMSS the biggest ever for Microsoft :-)