ATA’s Annual Meeting is a valuable investment for any telemedicine professional. Get the education and networking you need to stay up-to-date in this rapidly changing field.  Register before April 1 for discounted early-bird rates! A table of general meeting registration prices is below.  Click here to view a full list of registration fees.

ATA is the top forum for the latest peer-reviewed research, clinical outcomes, case studies and business models related to telemedicine and telehealth.  With 260 presentations, organized into 72 session and 8 topical tracks, ATA 2011 is the essential forum for well-informed health professionals.  The event also contains 12 pre-meeting Professional Development Courses providing training on the latest administrative, clinical and technical aspects of telemedicine.

• Click here for more information on the ATA 2011 Educational Tracks
• Click here for more information on pre-meeting Professional Development Courses

ATA 2011 will have two plenary sessions, featuring influential and moving keynote speakers. Learn from the leaders and consumers who are shaping modern healthcare. The opening plenary features cell phone Dr. Martin Cooper, inventor of the modern cellphone and mHealth advocate, as well as David Pogue, consumer technology correspondent for the New York Times. Tuesday’s plenary explores the true human impact of telemedicine, with real patients describing their life-changing experiences.

Click here for more information on the ATA 2011 Plenary Sessions.

The ATA 2011 Exposition is the world’s largest telemedicine tradeshow.  See and handle thousands of the most cutting-edge products and services in telemedicine, telehealth and mHealth.  The ATA 2011 exhibit hall features over 300 vendors and 200,000 square feet of exhibit space. Get a sneak-peek of the exposition and exhibitors in the ATA 2011 Virtual Exhibit Hall.

Interested in exhibiting at ATA 2011?  Click here for exhibiting opportunities.

Nothing about Tampa is typical. From the dramatic design of the minarets at the historic Tampa Bay Hotel to the brilliant sunsets that electrify the night sky, this West Coast community is tropical and always alluring.  Tampa has all of the attributes that make Florida one of the world’s favorite destinations. Bring your family and enjoy the area’s major theme parks, the country’s top beachs, world-class golf, amazing performing arts scene and, of course, the hot Tampa night-life!

The Canada RUG is a forum for Canadian users of Cerner solutions.

In 1995, some of Cerner’s Canadian clients wished they could meet together to discuss the changes that they were all faced with, including more computers that were making their way into the hospitals. It was a scary, but exciting change that was happening all across Canada.

London Health Services invited 15 people to gather in a small meeting room at St. Joseph’s Hospital to discuss such topics. North York General Hospital, Toronto East General Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospitals were all very active participants.

Since then, we have grown into a ‘Family of Users’ called the Cerner Canadian Regional User Group (RUG). This group meets annually, with as many as 350 attendees. Other benefits to attending the annual conference:

• Knowledge sharing
• Develop personal relationships with Cerner associates
• Network locally with users in your region and learn how to work through similar challenges
• Make your workflows more efficient
• Experience and discuss new and emerging technologies and products from Cerner-approved partners
• Get new ideas
• Lower costs allows organizations to send more users
• Continuing education credit offerings
• And much more!

Local conferences like this allow us to share ideas and learn from one another to make the best use of our Cerner modules.

Contact Name

Katie Bellas

816.201.2638
katie.bellas@cerner.com

More information will be release in the following weeks ahead.

For more information, check online HERE!

Guest speakers will share their knowledge and experience on issues such as market development, reimbursement and regulatory issues. Learn about the State of the Life & Health Science Industry in 2011 from our industry expert. Last, but certainly not least, meet other people working in this industry during the networking reception.

Start Date: Tuesday, March 08 2011
Start Time: 8:30 AM
End Time: 5:00 PM
Location: The Tannery Event Centre
151 Charles Street West, Kitchener

Communitech Network Members – $69.00+HST: $77.97
Non-members – $89.00+HST: $100.57

Agenda:
8:30am – Breakfast and Registration
9:00am – 10:00am – Arun Menawat: Building a Successful Life Sciences Company in Canada
10:00am-10:15am – Break
10:15am-12:00pm – Market Development Panel
12:00pm-1:00pm – Lunch
1:00pm-2:00pm – Gord Jans: State of the Life Sciences Industry
2:00pm-2:15pm – Break
2:15pm-3:30pm – Regulatory Strategy Panel
3:30pm-5:00pm – Networking Reception

Register and find more information online HERE!

In Canada the forward thinking of our Governments, put Canada Health Infoway in place close to 10yrs ago, with the goal that patient information could be shared with providers, as required, first locally or regionally and ultimately pan-Canadian.

The two countries may use different terms, but the goals are the same. Improve the delivery of care by securely sharing required patient with care providers and/or physicians.

Based on surveys down by HIMSS Analytics, the chart below shows that we in Canada are behind the US, but making progress.

Contrary to what many would believe the best progress in Canada is happening in the Maritimes. New Brunswick is leading the country. Why? This province is smaller both in geography and population which allows them to collaborate and work together differently than some of the larger provinces.

IT folks are used to planning a project, but sometimes when we are out of our normal day to day environment we forget the basics that have helped make us successful.

I use the five most common questions to help plan my four day adventure: who, what, why, how and when.

1^st – Why Attend?

What are your goals for attending? First time attendees don’t need onerous goals but make them realistic. Examples might be: learn about 1 new vendor or product a day that will help my organization or make 2 contacts each day that I can follow-up with over the next year

2^nd – What Information will help move our Hospital forward in 2011 or 2013?

Know in advance what you think will help your organization. You will always have a pleasant surprise, but that is a bonus.

3^rd – Who will you learn from? Make sure you look through the full agenda before you go to identify who you think will have information or insights that will help both you and your organization. It could be a speaker or a vendor or a person you meet. Identify 2 or 3 speakers and 2 or 3 vendors. You may not ever purchase anything from the vendors you meet, but you will come away with ideas.

4^th – How?  – agree that when you go back to your office you will share your learnings with your peers.  To do this I suggest you

a)      Document each session or  booth on the exhibit floor you go to… take notes the old fashion way, dictate as you leave the session or take pictures on you smart phone

b)      Summarize your notes each night… the amount of information is overwhelming at times so be sure to finalize your thoughts daily. Whether it is daily notes or a PowerPoint presentation, get the information ready to share with your peers… it only takes a few minutes

c)      Make a list of ideas or people to follow-up with.

5th When? use your time efficiently and effectively. Commit to following a plan of attack for 2/3 of the day and leave 1/3 flexible each day. Plan out which major vendors you want to talk with and make an appointment to visit their booth. Plan when you want to visit them, before or after a given educational session.

For example Day 1

a)      Attend the Key note address

b)      Go to the 1^st session in the  social media series

c)      Go to 1st session in the mobility series

d)     Visit vendor X’s booth to learn about a,b and/or c

It is a great learning environment. Enjoy it!

Check out the full agenda.

The Meet the Bloggers session on Wednesday, Feb. 23, brings a panel of leading health IT industry bloggers together to give attendees a look at the dedication, responsibilities and skills required to develop and maintain a successful blog. This year’s panelists include:

• Brian Ahier, Healthcare, Technology & Government 2.0 Blog;
• Bill Crounse, MD, MSDN HealthBlog;
• Deborah Leyva, RN, BSN, Healthcare & Technology Blog;
• John Sharp, MA, eHealth Blog; and
• Christina Beach Thielst, FACHE, Christina’s Considerations Blog.

Dr. Kellie Leitch, Ivey Centre for Health Innovation

Consumer Engagement for Health System Transformation
It’s time for Canadian health systems to find new ways to engage patients in personally meaningful and cost effective ways.
New technologies, new approaches and opportunities for engaging consumer more directly in our health care system may hold a promising opportunity for innovation adoption.
Join Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Chair of the Ivey Centre for Health Innovation and Leadership as she presents the Centre’s latest White Paper.

Click here to register for this event
Address:
Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
123 Queen Street West
Dominion Ballroom North
Toronto, ON

The rush is on!

Expected increased spending in the US on  Health IT from 2011 to 2015 is $36 Billion, with at least $20B of that coming from the Gov’t incentive program.  The USA has put in place a carrot and a stick approach. This is different than the approach used by Canada Health Infoway, in which organizations are only reimbursed once they can demonstrate they have effectively implemented. The USA health care organizations will receive incentives through 2015 to implement interoperable EHRs and show “meaningful” use. Following the incentives comes the stick or penalty for non-compliance. Over 66% of the CIOs surveyed in US Healthcare see a need to increase their staffing levels, primarily to ensure that Gov’t incentives available through 2015 are secured and used effectively, before penalties for non- compliance kick in.

What will this mean to Canada, a small market (less population than the state of California)

a)      less vendor attention and more limited access to US resources, as the large US based software companies focus on the lucrative situation at home.

b)      our staff maybe attracted to the US for higher wages and more challenging assignments. There are obviously differing views as to whether Canadians would go south, but with significantly lower projected spending in the next few years especially in Ontario due to high Gov’t deficits, and  onerous procurement rules skilled professionals may well leave, just as doctors and nurses did in the 1990’s.

PWC mixes into the discussion  Health Care IT trends were 2 very interesting Healtrh Care Trends:

Limited Consumer Demand

Similar to Canada, consumers are not demanding that they have Electronic records and/or have access to their own personal health record. PWC doesn’t feel that Health Care reform and thus lower costs will occur until consumers are engaged and willing to be accountable for managing and improving their own health. Canada is not different in this respect. But ‘Meaningful Use” requires hospitals and physicians to provide patients with an electronic copy of their health record on request. The theory of build and they will come may work, but significant consumer education is required to take advantage of this huge investment.

Generic Drugs

One may wonder why the introduction of more generic drugs is seen as a huge plus when taking about Health Care IT. Between 2010 and 2014, 50% of the drugs in the USA currently protected by patents will become available in their generic format. The US Health care sees this as a huge savings. In 2011 alone $26Billion of annual drugs costs goes off patent.  If savings are 50%, the costs reduction is $13 Billion. So do we care? Yes, I think we do. Funding of Health Care is an issue for most provinces as they struggle with large deficits. Have the Ministries of Health factored in these expected decreased costs, or can this be a potential source of funds to help implement electronic records in Canada.

Bottom line:

We have a solid foundation with investment from Canada Health Infoway, the Provinces and the providers. We must find ways to continue investing in the Electronic Health Record.

Resources:
Find the PWC report online HERE!

Here’s their list:

1. Health reform providers will explore new care and reimbursement models.
2. EMRs will shift from purchase to adoption phase for hospitals in 2011.
3. EMR-as-a-service options will take off among ambulatory providers.
4. CPOE will get real-world experience.
5. Clinical decision support will be integrated into care.
6. Meaningful use and healthcare reform technology purchasing will continue.
7. Clinical mobility will drive meaningful use.
8. Business and clinical intelligence will become actionable.
9. Client virtualization will become the rule for point-of-care applications.
10. Healthcare storage will transform to support electronic records and images.

Not surprisingly, technology takes a number of the key spots with Electronic Health Records, CPOE, Mobility and Virtualization making the list however the inclusion of Cloud and SaaS  may surprise some. While most other industries have been quick to adopt Cloud and SaaS Healthcare has been hesitant to make this leap. IDC is predicting that 2011 will see EMR and overall storage move in this direction and I quite agree.

Companies like Cerner have been providing a substantial number of EMR hosted services for a number of years now and the model has not only proven to be cost effective, but also extremely efficient for adoption and deployment of enhanced clinical systems.  Moving administrative applications, data and communications to the cloud should be a natural fit for the healthcare industry which is in need of not only cost savings but also greater efficiencies and access to innovative technologies.

Offloading the management of technology through traditional outsourcing allows organizations to focus more resources and dollars on innovation and improved quality of care often providing better and more auditable security as well.  Cloud and SaaS take the model to the next level with clinical and non clinical applications deployed and managed as a utility service. I expect we’ll begin to see more and more offerings move into this space or be created to meet demands in this space over 2011 and it’s nice to see that IDC agrees.

Resources:
Find the complete IDC article online HERE!