Kansas City IT Symposium logoBrian Thomas participated and spoke as a panelist on the session with key note speaker, Peter High on “The Path to CIO – How to Go From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” at the Kansas City IT Symposium in 2017. Brian shared his real-world experience on growing his career by building his brand through social media, speaking events, mentoring junior leaders, and volunteering for boards.

IT Symposium

EFM Events has been creating, connecting, and educating IT executives across the country since 2001. Their symposiums and summits are created around the idea of “educating the next generation of IT leaders”. Their speakers and topics are delivered by industry-leading professionals in your local area, along with national experts with broader perspectives. EFM events provide value at all levels – from education, networking and solution discovery.

Learn what’s new (and what’s next) by attending an EFM Event

EFM’s regional symposium model saves you money, time and gas. Most IT leaders can’t spare the extra time away from the office or the budget to attend large trade shows. EFM’s symposiums and summits are in your local communities, and are priced affordably so all can attend – making this the best “bang for your buck”.

Both sides of the health technology debate

In our last article, we talked about what to watch for in the way of wearable technology this year. Now we’ll discuss how this innovative form of technology can be used to promote a healthier population. We all know that health insurance payers give out incentives to providers for healthy patients; to obtain these incentives, healthcare providers must gather more data, communicate more effectively with their patients, and get them engaged in managing their own health. Why not use technology to automatically gather this data and send it back to the patient’s medical record? This method ensures accuracy, efficiency, timeliness, and accountability — things that can be sorely lacking in today’s healthcare management system. Wearables and your health intersect at awareness and healthy lifestyle planning.

The use of wearables, once a practice driven solely by individuals hopping on the “cool” factor of a FitBit, is now moving into the realm of employer- driven incentive as part of their health and wellness programs. Research has calculated a clear ROI on those who use wearables vs. those who do not. In fact, as part of a study conducted by Springbuk, employees using wearable technology cost $1,000 less on average for a company than those who didn’t. 

Undoubtedly, wearables are ideal for tracking and monitoring ongoing health and daily fitness activities. In fact, many companies are already boasting they can achieve this (you may have heard about Apple’s recent announcement of a patent for a device that can gather and process electrocardiographic measurements; or perhaps you’ve heard of wearable pregnancy trackers).

Wearable devices, along with mobile health apps, have made health data collection extremely convenient because they integrate with patients’ daily activities and reflect that activity in a quantifiable way. The information that can be collected from patients can play a critical role in how the world of medical advancement will look in the future, with wearables allowing both patients and care givers to measure a variety of indicators and generate feedback on anything from everyday health to specific markers for disease.

This can also aid in medical research; in effect, future generations can benefit from information gathered directly from users today. Healthcare professionals can gain insight into how diseases progress, which treatments are effective, how symptoms improve with certain treatments, etc. The availability and capability of the data that can be collected is mind numbing if you stop to think about it all.

Bridging the Gap

However, just because the technology is here doesn’t mean there aren’t other issues or obstacles that can stonewall the real-world integration of these technologies to the Electronic Health Record, such as:

  • Device weight
  • Cost
  • Security issues
  • Privacy concerns
  • Validity
  • Reliability
  • Regulations
  • Vendor bureaucracy

In addition to all that, there are ethical, legal, and social implications that make many healthcare professionals a bit reluctant to welcome wearable data into the electronic medical record, points out Forbes. Of course, there is always the possibility that a physician could be sued, for example, if a patient’s exercise pattern changed over time and the doctor failed to address it. Other concerns doctors may have include: How accurate is the wearable on any given day? What if there is a malfunction? What will each doctor do with the mountains of health information received? Is there a quantifiable way to document it all and make sense of it? Will this add to a workload that is already over stressed?

As you can see, many things still stand in the way of achieving a seamless connection between wearables and integration into patient records. It’s starting, though. With 274 million wearable electronic devices sold worldwide in 2016 alone, there’s no stopping the evolution of a simple fitness tracker into something much more helpful and potentially life saving. Novant Health, for instance, led the way in 2015 when it introduced its electronic patient portal, MyChart, so patients could share data from their fitness tracker with their doctors. This form of patient engagement represents the future of wearable technology integration.


Bringing Wearables into the Main Stream Health Community

With so many questions as to the security, accuracy and regulation of wearable technology and patient records, is it possible to develop standards for what data can be used and validated? Yes. The technology is there, it just has to be paired with policies that will protect patients’ rights. Once this happens, though, we can make wearables mainstream to help improve our populations’ chronic diseases. Looking ahead to what’s on the horizon, it’s certainly possible that such wearables can take this all one step further and alert or prevent the consumer from making unhealthy choices during the day. Hey, if Amazon and Maytag can automatically tell you when you are low on a product or an appliance needs service, certainly we can make this commonplace with our wearables. This is were wearables and your health intersect!

keynote addressBrian Thomas was the keynote speaker at the Johnson County Community College for the 2015 Heath Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Workforce Summit.  His 45-minute presentation covered current workforce trends and future of the Health Information Technology.

About Greater KC HIMSS

Representing Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri, the HIMSS Greater Kansas City Chapter provides a place for HIMSS members to play an active role in improving the future of healthcare through connection, collaboration and learning.  The Chapter creates spaces to connect seasoned professionals, emerging leaders and students to create positive change in healthcare; connect, collaborate and learn; and be at the forefront of the latest healthcare news and trends. They would be delighted to have you join them!

Members represent hospitals of all sizes, managed care organizations, integrated delivery systems, non-profit healthcare organizations, as well organizations who provide solutions for the many challenges that exist in healthcare.

Each year their membership and board organize several programs involving speakers and experts on a variety of topics.

Keynote Speaker Opportunities

If you are interested in becoming a Greater Kansas City chapter member, you can join here. If you are a current Chapter Member and you haven’t been receiving our e-mail newsletters or event information, or your e-mail address has changed, please update your HIMSS member profile or contact us at kc.info@himsschapter.org.

I look forward to seeing you, either virtually or in person, at a future event!