DrFirst

ViVE Revisited: Hot Health IT Topics Seen and Heard in Nashville

It’s hard to believe that ViVE, the digital healthcare event launched by CHIME and HLTH, is only two years old. Last week’s high-energy conference hosted more than 7,500 attendees, 300 speakers, and 600 exhibitors—pretty remarkable for a relative newbie! 

Even more noteworthy, the thousands of health IT pros in Nashville all shared one common goal: to move healthcare technology forward in a way that improves patient care.  

For the DrFirst team, that meant meeting with hospital and health system leaders to discuss new ways to make medication data available to prescribers so they can make more informed decisions for patients. The event also gave us an opportunity to collaborate on customizing medication management with electronic health record (EHR) and health IT partners, with lots of attention on how changing e-prescribing regulations and standards will impact development roadmaps.  

 

Emerging Technologies and Budding Partnerships  

One theme at ViVE emphasized successful collaboration as the glue that binds healthcare providers and technology companies.  

“One of my key takeaways from VIVE was a comment from HCA CEO Sam Hazen, who advised tech companies that to impact healthcare, the most important thing is to work from the ‘inside’ of the health system rather than the ‘outside,’” said our CEO, Cameron Deemer. “Many young companies were offering ideas, but it was clear that few of them have been invited ‘inside’ health systems to hone their models against real, daily workflow challenges. Health systems can benefit from all this energy and innovation by letting these companies ‘in’ so their solutions become relevant rather than simply elegant.”

 

Using Technology to Offer Equal Access to Care 

While sensational new technologies such as generative AI and autonomous mobile robots attract a lot of attention at events like ViVE, the lack of access to basic technology still poses a serious problem for the industry—and patients. 

“At ViVE this year, I saw progress in areas such as longwave and shortwave penetration from radio towers and plummeting prices on items like tablets and monitors,” said Colin Banas, M.D., M.H.A., our Chief Medical Officer. “That’s important because many regions of the United States and certain patient populations still lack access to technologies that are required for things like telehealth and at-home devices for remote medical monitoring as well as broadband internet connections to make them work. The potential of ‘techquity’ in healthcare is vast because it has the power to mitigate social and financial inequalities to give disadvantaged populations the same access to care everyone needs and deserves.”

 

Next Up: HIMSS23 

From Music City to the Home of the Blues: If we missed you last week at ViVE, let’s connect later this month at HIMSS in Chicago to discuss how we are redefining medication management to empower providers and their patients to achieve better health. Find us at booth 4027.