HIMSS25 started off with a bang or perhaps more of a shot in the arm from the Public Health Data Modernization Pre-conference Forum. As an elite sponsor of the event, HLN collaborated with HIMSS, ASTHO, CSTE, APHL, AIRA, CDC Foundation, EHRA, NACCHO, NAPSIS and Big Cities Health Coalition, as well as other organizational sponsors including AWS, InductiveHealth, Cloudwick and Docket to convene the public health community and private partners in discussion of integral and timely topics. With over 220 participants in attendance, subjects included public health priorities, funding, information exchange and emerging technologies.
The forum kicked off with presentations that offered diverse perspectives on the public health data modernization landscape, funding challenges and a call to action for participants to engage with their representatives in reiterating public health data modernization as an essential component to our nation’s health (Data: Elemental to Health and https://himss.quorum.us/campaign/SupportPH/). A county level description of its public health informatics journey paid homage to recognizing Tribal sovereignty within public health.
Following the presentations, facilitated table discussions identified priorities and potential solutions for ensuring public health agencies are integrated into the broader health ecosystem, recognizing the challenges in securing and maintaining funding. Participants stipulated the need to clearly articulate public health requirements and the return on investment yielded by funding allocations. Having a consistent message about the public health needs and rationale was raised by many of the participant groups. Other suggestions focused on expanding the skilled public health workforce through sustainable staffing models and enhanced hiring and training protocols. The need to move away from legacy systems and paper-based processes to more modernized and automated applications, and integrate disparate data systems for a more holistic view were also common themes. Another potential solution emerged for strengthening partnerships between public health, healthcare and other organizations to align efforts with common objectives and standards.
The public health data modernization pre-conference forum also launched a new HIMSS Public Health & Healthcare Systems Modernization Community to facilitate ongoing discussions between industry and public health on current trends and educational needs. In addition, HIMSS is convening a small group of thought leaders across public health, healthcare, academia and market suppliers throughout the year in the hope of generating new ideas and opportunities for public health data modernization achievable through public-private partnerships. This group held an in-person kickoff during the conference, separate from the public health pre-conference forum.
Kicking off the HIMSS25 conference with a focused public health forum enabled the participants to network and plan for the week ahead. While there is a concerted effort to expand on public health topics throughout the conference, HIMSS is so large a gathering with so many activities happening concurrently, that it is often difficult to hone in on public health sessions and events. However, we were encouraged to see an increased number of public health presentations offered, as well as participation in the conference this year, and we hope this continues to grow in the future.
HLN attendees found several presentations interesting related to sharing of patient summaries in “Breaking borders, international patient summary implementation across Americas” and “IPS Implementation across Americas and beyond”. Also noteworthy was Missouri’s use of the HIMSS digital health indicator which demonstrated how the indicator can be leveraged for public health. Missouri utilized the indicator to identify and show gaps in public health capabilities compared to health systems, which they presented in the session “State-Level Public Health and the Journey Towards Digital Maturity.” Several examples of STLT success stories in progressing data modernization were highlighted in many presentations, which indicate efforts being made at all levels of public health organizations and provide many opportunities to learn from each other, and re-use tools and techniques rather than build from scratch, something that is even more important now than ever.
The conference ended with a conversation with Simone Biles in front of a completely full auditorium, which was a perfect way to end the week. Simone’s strength, dedication and grit really showed through and it was truly inspiring to hear her talk. In addition to sponsoring the HIMSS25 Public Health Data Modernization pre-conference, HLN also participated in the Interop+SMART Experience Pavilion (formerly referred to as the Interoperability Showcase – see our separate blog post on this) with a kiosk titled “FHIR & ICE” providing demonstrations of our efforts with FHIR for Immunization Information Systems (IIS) and our open source immunization evaluator, or the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE).