ORLANDO, Fla.-- Integrating the efforts of a tele-ICU and the transfer center can improve clinical care for emergent patients, resulting in soft savings for the provider and reduced length of inpatient stay, according to a Feb. 22 presentation at the 2011 annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference.

ORLANDO, Fla.-- With more than a day left to go, attendance at the 2011 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) conference broke a record, hitting 30,947, according to the Chicago-based nonprofit organization. By comparison, there were an estimated total of 27,800 attendees at the 2010 event, according to a statement from H. Stephen Lieber, CAE, president and CEO of HIMSS.

ORLANDO, Fla.--Clarence M. Sevillian II, MBA, president and CEO of Doctors Hospital of Michigan, offered  a contrarion message during an educational session Feb. 22 at the HIMSS11 conference--his hospital is not going to meet meaningful use because of financial reasons.

ORLANDO, Fla.--More often, CMIOs are seeking formal informatics training, said William R. Hersh, MD, professor and chair of the department of medical informatics and epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University, in Portland, Ore, this week during the HIMSS 2011 conference.

ORLANDO, Fla.--System integration may not be a simple process, but it can be accomplished using a project management approach, according to Susan M. Houston, RN-BC, and Ryan D. Kennedy, BS, of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. Houston and Kennedy, who work in the centers department of clinical research informatics, made their case to a capacity audience at HIMSS11 Feb. 21.

ORLANDO, Fla.--HIPAA and EHRs will bring about new challenges, yet also new opportunities with encryption of health IT to improve a patients privacy and an organizations security, said Adam H. Greene, JD, MPH, senior health IT and privacy specialist at the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, during an educational session Feb. 21 at HIMSS11.

Intermountain Healthcare opened a new center to support clinical information systems, the Intermountain Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research, on Feb. 16, on the campus of the medical center in Salt Lake City.

ORLANDO, Fla.--John E. Mattison, CMIO of Kaiser Permanente Southern California, answered questions about the current role of the Nationwide Health Information Network Direct Project, and how health information exchanges (HIE) could participate, during the town hall portion of the CIO Forum, which is hosted by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), in conjunction with HIMSS11.