It’s been quite a long time since anyone except Stephen Lieber was been president and CEO of The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), but he’ll soon be handing over the reins after 17 years to Harold “Hal” Wolf III, an alum of Kaiser Permanente and the Chartis Group as well as a HIMSS board member.

The combination of precision medicine and information technology (IT) has the potential to improve patient outcomes. But many healthcare organizations are slow to pursue integration. A recently released report, “2017 Precision Medicine Study," from Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) outlines how healthcare organizations view the expansion and improvement of IT with precision medicine.

Under President Donald Trump's proposed budget, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will lose $22 million in funding. The 36 percent reduction cuts the $60 million for ONC to $38 million in 2018.

The Health 2.0 conferences, which focused on start-up technologies in healthcare, will now be under the banner of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Don Woodlock, GM of Enterprise Imaging at GE Healthcare IT discusses at HIMSS17 the importance of creating a more holistic view of the patient for the provider. The best way to accomplish this task is to integrate all specialties, images, test results into one EMR, allowing a complete view of patient information.

Paul Markham, VP, Global Marketing with Vital said the word that made the most powerful impact at HIMSS17 was “mobile.” As interoperability continues to improve within hospitals and other ACO’s, access to timely information will be key in providing the highest quality of care to the patient.

Todd Rothenhaus, MD, the CMO and SVP at athenahealth discusses at HIMSS17 the importance of independent entities working together. Care coordination and collaboration tools play a big part.

At HIMSS17, Neil Simon, COO of Aprima discusses the value of interoperability and the exchange of information. The right system allows providers to take better care of their patients, get properly reimbursed, and report easily to various agencies.