Where HIMSS Can Take Health 2.0

I was quite privileged to talk to the leaders of Health 2.0, Dr. Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt, in the busy days after their announced merger with HIMSS. I was revving to talk to them because the Health 2.0 events I have attended have always been stimulating and challenging. I wanted to make sure that after their incorporation into the HIMSS empire they would continue to push clinicians as well as technologists to re-evaluate their workflows, goals, and philosophies.

I’m not sure there is such a thing as a typical Health 2.0 event, but I generally see in such events a twofold mission. Sometimes they orient technologists to consider the needs of doctors and patients (as at a developer challenge). Other times they orient clinicians and health care institutions to consider the changes in goals and means that technology requires, as well as the strains caused by its adoption (as in a HxRefactored conference). Both of these activities disturb the cozy status quo in health IT, prodding its practitioners to try out new forms of research, design, and interaction. Health 2.0 was also happy to publish my own articles trying to untangle the standard confusion around health care.

For HIMSS, absorbing Health 2.0 is about as consequential as an ocean liner picking up a band of performing musicians along its ports of call. For Health 2.0, the impact could be much larger. Certainly, they gain the stability, funding opportunities, and administrative support that typically come with incorporation into a large, established institution. But can they keep their edge?...