There's a Reason for That

We set up the IHE Interoperability Demonstration at HIMSS today, and will put the polishing touches on it tomorrow. This is looking to be the best demonstration in the last 6 years that I've been a participant. There will be a lot going on this week and I'm looking forward to it all.  There's a reason for that, and that is pretty much the theme of this blog.  It started this morning...


As I entered the hall this morning and asked directions to the IHE Showcase, someone told me about the shortcut between Hall B and Hall C.  It's the best way to go he said, because we put the Interoperability Showcase at the other end of the hall.  "I know,"  I responded  "you do that every year."  He replied "There's a reason we do that..." and before he could finish I told him what it was.  The IHE Showcase draws something like 10% of the HIMSS attendees to it, and they want to pull people through the exhibit hall, so they put the big attraction at the other end of it.

It sounds like good marketing strategy to me.  This is also the reason that several vendors I know set up their booths around the showcase (even one vocal IHE detractor I know did that for several years).  They realize that is the place to be. 

There is a reason for that.  I watched six years aog as the sole HIE core service that we'd accidentally created attracted all the attention that year (and, yes, I will forgive Bill, someday..)  Five years ago when we demonstrated XDS as a profile instead of an accident, an analyst told one of the profile authors that we'd just invented a $2 billion dollar a year business worldwide.  I've seen that busisness blow past $2b a year in the US alone a couple of years ago (see the HIMSS Analytics database), and heard estimates that it was nearly $12b a year globally a year or so ago.

There's a reason for that:  Show me any other technology that can have such an impact, and that is deployed in so many places around the globe, and is available from so many different vendors.  You can see it right here at HIMSS at the Interoperability Showcase, and around the rest of the world. That map is about to explode again.  There are about 30 different organizations using NHIN Connect, which is based on the IHE XDS profile.  Only a few of them are on that map today, but I have a mission this week to go find them and put them on it.  That will be pretty easy, they are right next to the Interoperability Showcase.

Tuesday will be very busy for me next week. There's a reason for that too.  From 1-2pm I'll be at the IHE Patient Care Coordination Committee informational session.  If you want to learn more about this domain, and what it has to offer, drop by for an hour and hear about the work we are doing, and how you can freely participate.  From 3:30 to 5:00 I'll on one of the several "meet the bloggers" panels along with some other industry notables (some much more well known that I am).  After that, one of the two presentations I'm on for this week will be the PCC update on Tuesday afternoon.  We will do something a little bit different in the presentation this year, but that's because we've done something special this year.  Come find out what we did Tuesday at 4:45 in Theater B at Booth #233 in Hall C.

I hope to see you there.  If I don't see you, I hope you have a good reason for that.

   Keith