mHealth ready to make its mark at HIMSS13

At one time in the not-too-distant past, one might have looked at the term 'mHealth' and thought it was a typo.

Not any more.

As evidenced by the agenda for the 2013 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition, beginning Sunday in New Orleans, mHealth is a force to be reckoned with. From the pre-conference workshops on Sunday to the Exhibit Hall to the education sessions and keynotes, mobile healthcare is rapidly emerging as one of the most intriguing aspects of the ever-shifting healthcare landscape.

Here's a sample of what's on tap at this year's conference:

The Mobile Health Knowledge Center – located at booth 8247 in the Ernest B. Morial Convention Center, the booth offers the latest in wireless health concepts and technologies, along with an array of 30-minute education sessions during regular Exhibit Hall hours (see below for details).

Sunday workshops

• The mHIMSS chapter of HIMSS kicks off the conference with a daylong workshop on its recently released mHIMSS Roadmap. Coordinated by Mohammed A. Ali, FHIMSS, CPHIMSS, and mHIMSS members, the workshop includes an overview of the roadmap, sessions on policy, ROI, privacy & security and new care models, and break-out sessions highlighting innovative use cases. Workshop B takes place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in room 260.
• "Technology & Trajectory of Mobility in a New Healthcare Model" (Workshop E) takes place from 8 a.m. to noon in Room 265. Moderated by Shawn M. Jackman and Nico Arcino, the workshop will address how anytime-anywhere mobile access is transforming the traditional healthcare workflow.
• "Build Your Own Mobile App: A Hands-On Experience" (Workshop F) takes place from 1-5 p.m. in Room 265. Moderated by Arvind Sarin, MBA, the session invites participants to roll up their sleeves and directly experience the life cycle of a mobile healthcare application by developing an app for the iPhone.

General Education sessions

The following sessions are listed as part of the mHealth track for HIMSS13:

Monday, March 4

• Federal mHealth Policy (Session 10), 9:45-10:45 a.m., Room 271
• Innovation – A Look at mHealth's Moving Target (Session 29), 11 a.m.-noon, Room 271
• Mobile E-Visits: Disruptive Distribution to Bend the Healthcare Cost Curve (Session 48), 12:15-1:15 p.m., Room 271
• Mobility and BYOD: An Uneasy and Inevitable Relationship, 1:15-1:45 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Is Your Mobile Strategy Truly Scalable?, 2-2:30 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Empowering Individuals to Meet the Challenges of Their Healthcare System, 2:45-3:15 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Rx for the Physician's Practice Is In The Cloud, 3:30-4 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Addressing the Challenges of Enabling a Mobile Healthcare Workforce, 4:15-4:45 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• How T-Mobile is Changing the Face of Healthcare Through Mobility, 5-5:30 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center

Tuesday, March 5

• The Car That Cares (Session 63), 9:45-10:45 a.m., Room 245
• Tackling the "Achilles Heel" of Mobile Medicine, 9:45-10:15 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Beyond the Device: A Comprehensive Mobility Strategy (Session 68), 9:45-10:45 a.m., Room 271
• The Mobile Healthcare Imperative: Making the Right Platform Decision to Maximize Agility & Patient Outcomes, 10:30-11 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Insights on Patient Engagement From a Tech-centric Provider, 11:15-11:45 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• House Call by Smartphone: Disruptive Delivery Model Enables e-Visits Via Mobile Platform Within the Medical Home, 12-12:30 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Healthcare Gets Scrappy: Can Startups Change the System? (Session 82), 1-2 p.m., Room 245
• Legal Issues in the Convergence of Healthcare and Mobile Telecommunications (Session 87), 1-2 p.m., Room 271
• Reshaping Healthcare with Conformal Electronics (Session 101), 2:15-3:15 p.m., Room 245
• Mobile and Wireless Technologies in the Hospital – Now and Soon (Session 106), 2:15-3:15 p.m., Room 271
• mHIMSS Roadmap – mHealth Guidance for Hospitals and Health Systems, 2:45-3:15 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Clinician Content, Patient Portal Content and Integration, 3:30-4 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Mobile Document Management? McKesson has an App for That, 4:15-4:45 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center

Wednesday, March 6

• Building a New Breed of mHealth to Better Track and Manage Patient Outcomes (Session 120), 8:30-9:30 a.m., Room 245
• A Health IT Executive's Guide to BYOD Management (Session 125), 8:30-9:30 a.m., Room 271
• Mobile Devices: The Legal Landscape and Adopting Appropriate Policies, 9:45-10:15 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Enabling mHealth with Integrated Medical Devices, 10:30-11 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Improving Healthcare Communication for the 21st Century, 11:15-11:45 a.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Empowering Family Caregivers: Harnessing Mobile & Social to Improve Healthcare Outcomes, 12-12:30 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Top Five Information Risk, Security and Privacy Considerations for BYOD, 2:45-3:15 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• eSignature – Mobile Electronic Signature Capture for the Modern Hospital, 3:30-4 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center
• Implementing Powerful Patient Engagement, 4:15-4:45 p.m., Mobile Health Knowledge Center

Thursday, March 7

• Mobile IT for Clinicians: Insights from Multiple Acute Care Settings (Roundtable 308), 10-11 a.m., Room 293

Topol keynote – On Tuesday, March 5, HIMSS will present a keynote by Eric J. Topol, West Endowed Chairman of Innovative Medicine at San Diego-based Scripps Health and professor of genomics with the Scripps Research Institute. A noted cardiologist and author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care, Topol is a well-regarded regular on the lecture circuit who often speaks about how digital technology is giving consumers control of their own healthcare information and changing the healthcare delivery landscape. Topol's keynote will take place from 8:30-9:30 a.m. in Great Hall A.
 

Eric Wicklund

Editor of mHIMSS.org

Follow Eric on Twitter @eriwick