Health IT Conferences 2012

The good people over at Search Health IT have put together a calendar of Healthcare IT related conferences happening in 2012. Just going through the list is a bit overwhelming and I’m sure they haven’t gotten each and every healthcare IT conference out there. I think they don’t have MGMA on there and the NYeC conference, Digital Health Summit, that I attended last year. Maybe I’m partially overwhelmed because I’m still in the post-HIMSS recovery cycle, but looking at the list it’s pretty clear health IT is in vogue.

I honestly don’t have any conferences firmly placed on my agenda for 2012. I’d like to hit the AHIMA conference and MGMA conference again. I really enjoyed both of those in 2011. I loved Connected Health Symposium, Digital Health Summit, and the mHealth Summit last year. I just know I don’t want to travel as much this year as last year. So, I’m going to have to be more selective.

So, there you have it. I have a big undecided on which healthcare IT conferences to attend in the rest of 2012. Which conferences will you be attending? Which conferences do you think I should attend? With so many choices, I’m going to have to be much more selective and find new ways to differentiate which conferences I attend. I was spoiled this past year having HIMSS and MGMA in the beautiful Las Vegas.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on conferences.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

4 Comments

  • I apologize for being a bit snarky, but I clicked on the first link in your post to check out the HIT calendar posted at Search Health IT. The calendar is useful, although as you noted it is missing some important dates. But that’s not what has me feeling snarky…

    The blog is aimed at the IT audience. It’s written by a person who claims a close connection to IT. And it claims to be a calendar. But it isn’t available in calendar format!!! I can go to airlines, banks, retailers, even insurance companies, and download date sensitive information in the form of a direct link into either Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, or other widespread calendar programs. But not healthcare IT information.

    This seems symbolic to me of one of the core issues in HIT. There are literally thousands of people circling the HIT venue, offering advice, instructions, guidance and commands – but they don’t actually know how to do the job. We are surrounded by project managers, champions and pundits, most of whom wouldn’t know how to say “Hello World” if you put a gun to their heads. All this “leadership” is responsible for a raucous and confusing cacophony of direction, but no actual assistance. They have no clue about the complexity of what we’re trying to do, can’t tell the nuts from the bolts, and yet they presume to have the power and ability to set “goals”, “directions” and, God forbid, “deadlines.” We are constantly distracted by verbiage, but the majority of those spewing it literally don’t have the slightest idea how to make it happen.

    It’s no wonder CMIO’s are reporting substantially less job satisfaction over the last couple of years. Dealing with all the nonsense has got to be a strain. At least the rank and file HIT pros can Ignore it, more or less, but it’s always there in the background. And it’s annoying…

    I rarely go to conferences. The leaders I’ve just described tend to speak at them, and the IT press covers the drivel exhaustively – it’s just too frustrating.

  • I actually preferred the “calendar” format that they used for listing the events. If it was on a real calendar I wouldn’t have liked it as much. For example, then I couldn’t have searched for the ones I was looking for specifically.

    Regardless, your point and comparison is an interesting one. One that applies far too well.

    Turns out, some of my favorite conferences aren’t on the list either. I like to go to some of the specialty specific conferences to interact with a wide variety of doctors. I also enjoy user group meetings for the various EHR vendors. Then, I get to talk with the people on the ground that really work with the EHR and no the challenges and benefits.

    That said, the best thing at the conferences is meeting interesting people and many are incredibly interesting people with different perspectives. Although, I definitely cover conferences far different than most other press from what I’ve seen.

  • I am looking for a conference where I can demo many EHR/EMR in one place, preferably sooner than later. Do you have “the one” conference I should go to? I currently use an EMR I am trying to get away from and want to move to a cloud based system. I really prefer a hands on approach.
    Thanks.

  • Jason,
    The timing on this question is really hard. I think MGMA and HIMSS are likely the 2 best places right now to do what you describe but HIMSS just passed and MGMA is in October. They have a lot more than just EHR, but there are a TON of EHR vendors at both of those. AAFP might not be another bad choice, but I think it’s in the Fall too.

    Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. Since you want cloud based, you should be able to get your hands on at least a demo account of any of the cloud based EHR vendors. Although, you won’t get the nice personal touch of the sales people in person.

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