David Niewolny

"Better health through information and technology"– that is the motto of global healthcare IT organization HIMSS. This week I had the opportunity to attend HIMSS18, the organization’s global conference in Las Vegas. A gathering of over 40,000 healthcare technology professionals in one location, united by one concept, was truly inspiring. The show created a call to action for us as attendees to do our part in solving some of healthcare’s biggest challenges. And make no mistake, there are significant challenges. Each year these challenges are reflected as consistent themes throughout the event, communicated by participating vendors, in presentations, in keynote speeches and in casual conversations.

An interview with the CEO of DocBox, Tracy Rausch

During the RTI Connext Conference in San Jose, CA, I had the opportunity to talk with the CEO of DocBox, Tracy Rausch. For the the past 10 years, DocBox’s mission has been to drive efficiency in healthcare through the democratization of data. Their combination of hardware, software and analytics aims to arm healthcare providers with more actionable information than ever before. The goal is to provide a platform with similar capabilities to SMART on FHIR – an open application programming interface that allows developers to create apps (and clinicians to select apps) that work with their EHR system, regardless of vendor for mission critical, real-time data.

With each passing day, we find a new market or application where the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are going to redefine life as we know it. I have high hopes for what the IIoT and AI/ML can do for transportation, smart grid, smart home, industrial automation, etc., but I don’t believe any of these applications will have as profound of an impact on the human race as the application of IIoT and AI/ML to Healthcare.