Reporting out from #CHC13

The opening day of the Cerner conference was a wonderful day!

I was honored to meet with Ross Martin, MD from AMIA and member of The Walking Gallery for a quick breakfast.  He told me about the speech that he delivered on Saturday.  I was happy to hear about it as I noticed the twitter stream blew up with positive feedback.  Ross wove technology together with his family patient story in an inspiring presentation that they will talk about at Cerner for years to come.

At lunchtime I met with the wonderful Matt Dunn who often tweets from the Cerner handle.  We had a wide-ranging conversation that covered children’s literature, professional organizations and the future of health informatics. 

As the day progressed, I saw more and more tweets using the conference hashtag: #CHC13.  At 4:15 I met Brian Carter from Cerner and a fellow member of the Walking Gallery.  We headed over to the convention center to sit among the hundreds gathered to hear four visionary keynotes.

Daphne Bascom introduced the night’s speakers and set the inspiring tone of the session as she used the conference motto: “It starts with me.” She reminded us anyone could be a change agent.  Our first speaker was Sajjad Yacoob, MD Chief Medical Information officer of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.  Sajjid mentioned how it was very important to think about system design goals long before you ever involve a vender. He also emphasized focusing on the baby in the bed rather than the tech in the cloud.

Next up was Brian Yeaman, MD Chief Medical Informatics Officer from Norman Regional Health System in Oklahoma.  I was pretty excited to hear him speak as I grew up in Oklahoma and most my family still resides in the state.  He reported out the success of the state Health Information Exchange using the new moniker “Global Medical Record.”  I think that is rather a catchy title. He also spoke to us about the tornadoes that caused such havoc this past year.  He explained how their hospital’s electronic health records coupled with the ease of data exchange allowed for providers to better care for patients in the aftermath.

Next up was Jonathan Bickel, MD Director of Clinical Research Informatics, Boston Children’s Hospital.  Dr. Bickel explained the power of algorithms to predict the paths of hurricanes and discover patients suffering from domestic abuse.  He also pointed out the data set available for EMR use was better than clinical trial data as the data pool was far more diverse.

The last speaker was the amazing Rebecca Onie, co-founder and CEO of Health Leads.  I had the honor of seeing Rebecca present at TedMed in 2012.  She is a big proponent of addressing root causes that make patients suffer.  If a patient needs food to address a state of malnutrition then food should be able to be prescribed.  If a patient is returning to the ED due to asthma attacks brought on by a cockroach infestation in the home, the health system should be able to help remove the pests that are causing the root problem.  I love Rebecca.  She is my kind of disruptor.

That was the first day of the Cerner Conference and I was so glad to be there.