I always hated popularity contests in high school. I was never very popular. The only teams where I was ever highly sought after was in math, and even there, I always came in second after Michael C, who was even more of a geek that I was. I also get rather frustrated with most of the Health IT media attention on top N Health IT leaders. Yes, CEOs and CIOs and CMOs and CMIOs of major healthcare providers are important. But rarely in those contests does it ever say you need to have "Chief" in your job title, and while I know about the importance of support and leadership and air cover at the C-level, usually their technical understanding of what it takes to make the Health IT projects work that they get credit for is at Sea-level.
I do OK in the HIT100 because for the most part the initial stages really do identify the folk worth watching. So, I kind of like the contest. Though once you get past HIT100 into HIT10, HIT5 or HIT1, it becomes not just a popularity contest, but a vote stuffing contest, and I never try to win that. The recognition might be nice, but it never lasts beyond the end of August. Do you recall who won in 2011 and 2012 (I do, but that's another story, I can't get dumb facts out of my head).
I made it a point this year to nominate people to the HIT100 who I hadn't yet seen a nomination for. There are a couple of folks working on Blue Button Plus, a couple on FHIR, and a good chunk of my nominees are from outside the US. Here are a few of my nominees:
John Moehrke (@johnmoehrke): As I told @SusannahFox, when Health IT mixes with privacy and security, John is my go to guy, and his blog is my go to blog. It helps that I have his mobile on speed dial.
Heather Leslie (@omowizard): One of the few Aussie's with a Regina Holliday jacket, Heather's blog is to OpenEHR as mine is to CDA.
Ewout Kramer (@ewoutkramer): Ewout is second only in my mind behind Grahame Grieve (who had already been nominated) as one of the leaders of the FHIR-storm that is taking over HL7. He's building the C# reference implementation of a FHIR Server.
Rene Spronk (@Ringholm): Rene is one of Europe's best sources for information on HL7 CDA, and also a strong promoter of FHIR. Rene's blog is another good source of information, although he publishes less frequently than I like.
Margalit Gur-Arie (@margalitgurarie): Thoughtful, insightful and cutting. Margalit's posts are almost always all of the above. Her twitter presence is almost completely dominated by links to her blog posts, but with that kind of content, little else is necessary.
Eric Poiseau (@ericpoiseau): I can't think of anyone else other than Steve Moore who has contributed as much to the success of IHE Connectathons. Eric is the brain behind the IHE Connectathon test management tools, and also contributes a great deal to IHE Europe and the IHE Laboratory Domain.
Josh Mandel (@JoshCMandel): A leader in Blue Button+ Pull efforts, and lead architect for SMART.
Nayan Jain (@supernayan): Up and comer, Presidential Fellow and fellow Blue Button+ aficionado, Nayan may be new to our scene, but look out, I expect great things from him.
Thomas Sullivan (@GovHITEditor): I like his stuff.
Hacking HIPAA (@HackingHIPAA): I think this is a great project that deserves more attention.
I never liked popularity contests either.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that the #HIT100 idea came to me was that during the 2011 4th of July holiday I was running into all these articles or blog posts naming the top 10 health IT influencers in social media. We're they sucking up? Probably.
I said to myself: "Who are these people? I've never heard of them before?"
Coincidentally I was sharing some crowd-sourcing ideas with @NateOsit and I thought to myself: "Why don't I put this to test with the #HealthIT and #HITsm communities?"
Yes, the #HIT10, #HIT5 and #HIT1 idea wasn't a good one and I suffered the enduring pain of keeping up with it but in 2012 we didn't go down that rabbit hole and this year I wouldn't think so. But this is crowd-sourced so I don't make that call alone.
So it is.
Michael (@theEHRGuy)
P.S. Nice choices in your list.
Putting aside my personal thoughts on contests and popularity votes, I find the list very helpful in finding and following individuals and organizations that may not have yet crossed my path. As you have done here, with specifics of their focus in healthIT , it becomes a resource of crowd-sourced curation.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would like to see the full list that results from Michael (@theEHRGuy ;) I use the list to research and follow those that enlighten me in my particular niche of interest. It certainly requires additional work to cultivate for practical use and engagement but it gets me out of the gate. It also saves me time by noting those nominated from individuals who I already respect in the arena. You have done just that with this post.
It's definitely a list worth watching, and I review it myself for that same reason.
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