#HIMSS14 Day One. And, off we go...

Above: HIMSS Board Chair Scott MacLean opens up the 2014 event

Above, the Mayor welcomes HIMSS14

Above and below, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini opens HIMSS14 with his Keynote address

Sitting in the Media health IT Leadership Survey brunch and panel discussion at the moment. In sum, CIOs are worried about financial sustainability, and finding competent IT staff. Most report having already done Meaningful Use Stage 1 attestations.

EXHIBIT HALL OPENS

A quick random ramble. All the Big Players are in place, as usual.

Everyone's getting into healthcare:
You want a 3/8th cordless drill with that CABG px?

"Strategic Interoperability"?

I put in to win this guitar at the Peer 60 booth. My wife will kill me,
I have axes and amps all over the house, and a P.A.
and stage lights piled up in the garage.

Below: in addition to the Big Dawgs, HIMSS14 features a
Startup Showcase competition.

BTW: Links to my coverage of HIMSS13 and HIMSS12. While I can and do write dense copy with the best of them, I love doing "photojournalism" as well. I do this mostly for the vast majority of people unable to attend in person. Try to convey a sense of what it's like to attend. I did a lot of that in Vegas covering my many friends in the music industry there.

I attended a 4 pm HIMSS policy briefly featuring Tom Leary, HIMSS VP of Government Relations. It was interesting. HIMSS' Beltway lobb... -- uh -- "advocacy" operation is very astute and energetic. Seems to me that the legislative and regulatory interests of the Health IT space are quite well represented on the Hill and amid the agencies.

Your Daily Downer

"Patient matching is the healthcare cousin of NSA surveillance." - Adrian Gropper

Really?
___

More to come, as always...