Last year I had the pleasure of attending the HIMSS annual conference for the first time. It’s one of the largest gatherings of healthcare professionals in the U.S., and the conversations boiled down to one core theme: taking better care of patients. I definitely heard about servers, storage, imaging platforms and the need to cut costs, but the conversations still centered on using technology to take better care of patients and free up resources to focus on better patient care.
That meant a lot to me because Dell was founded on the idea of empowering people to reach their full potential. We believe that technology isn’t just for big companies or only the big health systems. The small hospitals and the solo practitioners matter too, and we want to give them access to the same technology the big guys use. The patients at 25-bed Hendry Regional Medical Center in Florida should reap the same benefits of information-driven healthcare as do the patients at Los Angeles-based Good Samaritan Hospital.
HIMSS, and the universal focus on patient care, gave me a deeper understanding of why Dell’s investments in healthcare really matter. Taking the time to listen to our customers – whether they are caregivers, IT professionals, health plan administrators or patients – and designing solutions that meet their needs is the heart of our business.
The other thing that impressed me at HIMSS last year was the energy and willingness to try something new. Healthcare is at the center of technology innovation. After decades of slow progress, healthcare IT is taking leaps and bounds forward, and caregivers see technology as a key tool for helping their patients.
The Dell Healthcare team will be at HIMSS 2014 in full force, and they’ll be ready to showcase some of the innovative solutions we’ve designed specifically for healthcare. Many of our solutions, like the Unified Clinical Archive and our healthcare analytics tools, focus on simplifying technology and making it easier to use. These solutions can help hospitals use cutting edge technology without adding more people to maintain the infrastructure. And less money on IT maintenance means more money for doctors and nurses at the bedside.
One of the premier events of the week will be the Tuesday educational session “N=1: Customizing Care for My Life and My DNA” (10 a.m. in room 320) by Eric Dishman, Intel’s health and life sciences general manager. He’ll share his 25-year journey – as cancer patient and as healthcare entrepreneur – and describe the challenges of scaling n=1 medicine to every institution and individual. Andrew Litt, MD, Dell’s chief medical officer, will join him on stage to share advances in treatment of neuroblastoma, a fast-moving cancer that strikes mostly young children. Dell technology is speeding up genome sequencing, which helps doctors quickly find the most effective treatments for each of these young patients.
You’ll also want to visit Dell’s booth, #5264 in Hall C, where you can talk to our experts in cloud, security, EMR, ICD-10, analytics and more. There will be hands-on demonstrations of our healthcare solutions, and you can also register to win a Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet. We’ll give away three of these great new tablets, one each day of the exhibit. Check the Dell booth schedule for times and other information.
Dell experts will also host three panel discussions in the Intel Hospitality Suite, room 340C (third floor):
- Tuesday 2/25, 7:30am: Advanced Systems and Analytics for Accountable Care Models
- Wednesday, 2/26, 7:30am: Beyond BYOx – the Internet of Things in Healthcare
- Wednesday, 2/26, 9:30am: A Virtualized Linux offering for Epic customers
Overall, HIMSS 2014 looks to be even more exciting and inspiring than last year’s event, and the Dell team can’t wait to get there.
