Open Affairs TV at HIMSS 12

The crew at Open Affairs TV is at HIMSS12 in Las Vegas!

But wait, isn’t HIMSS all about silos and proprietary systems? Not quite. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a surge of collaborative platforms popping up across the HIMSS agendas and exhibit halls. Health Information Exchanges are the topic of many-a-session, focusing on standards, implementation and collaboration. Direct and CONNECT projects are adding fueling many community HIE efforts, and they’re well represented in the educational forums and Exhibit Halls. EMR organizations like OpenEMR, Clear Health and Practice Fusion have forged open-source trail, opened their APIs and generally embraced the Todd Park-propelled open government movement.

Todd’s actually here this week, talking about the Health Data Initiative, along with various ONC members talking about patient engagement, privacy and more.

And then there’s the eCollaboration Forum, a partnership between HIMSS and the Collaborative Health Consortium, a series of sessions dedicated to open platforms, and packed with high caliber speakers like Robert Kolodner, Farzad Mostashari, Esther Dyson and more. (Full disclosure, Nate DiNiro and Lizzie Dunklee are co-producers on the event, so of course we think it’s awesome.)

The big news of last week was the announcement of the Open Health Tools collaboration with HIMSS, a new effort to deliver healthcare industry-specific guidance and non-proprietary solutions that aid in enabling a secure and seamless exchange of health information.

Expect to hear more from us in the coming days and weeks as we bring you news and interviews from some of the leaders in the open health IT world.