The Federal Health IT Pavilion at HIMSS19 is a place on the Exhibit Hall floor where attendees can interact with federal government agencies that have robust health IT portfolios.
The theme of the specialty pavilion is collaboration opportunities – how health IT community stakeholders can take advantage of collaboration opportunities with key federal agencies.
The goal is to show attendees is that the federal government is interested and engaged in promoting the health IT-related projects – and to showcase the funding opportunities available that stakeholders may want to explore.
A dozen exhibits
There are 12 kiosks in the pavilion, with 11 occupied by federal agencies and one reserved for The MITRE Corporation, the pavilion's sponsor. The participating agencies include:
- Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT
- National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Defense Health Agency
- Department of Commerce
- National Library of Medicine
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Health Resources and Services Administration
- HHS Cybersecurity Operations
"Each agency will be highlighting its health IT portfolios, as well as possible ways to collaborate with them," said Jeffrey Coughlin, senior director, federal and state affairs, at HIMSS. "The pavilion is the only place at HIMSS19 where you will be able to visit with several federal agencies in one place and look for collaboration opportunities."
The Federal Health IT Pavilion also features a theater where federal agency personnel and MITRE will be making 20-minute lightning presentations to interested audiences about their latest offerings as well as opportunities for partnership.
"For example, the Department of Commerce will be discussing how its policies focused on expanding U.S. export opportunities increase jobs at home," Coughlin said. "The Defense Health Agency's presentation will highlight how cybersecurity standards drive health IT to transform the delivery of healthcare to service members, veterans and their families. Overall, through the deployment of MHS GENESIS, the Defense Health Agency raised the bar for cybersecurity and interoperability."
"Each agency will be highlighting its health IT portfolios, as well as possible ways to collaborate with them."
Jeff Coughlin, HIMSS
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will discuss modernizing guidelines and clinical decision support for the next stage of healthcare delivery, particularly how knowledge for public health action resides outside electronic health records and depends on human translation into system workflows, resulting in implementation variability and inefficiency, he added.
Human readable, machine-interpretable
"The CDC's presentation also will feature how standards and tools for describing knowledge now allow concurrent creation of human readable and machine-interpretable versions, providing the opportunity to modernize developing and disseminating knowledge artifacts efficiently at scale," he said.
Coughlin said that attendees at the Federal Health IT Pavilion will have much to take back home.
"The pavilion will help to break down any existing barriers between attendees and what the federal government is able to offer to the broader health IT community, in terms of new grant funding, informational training resources or guidance documents," he said. "I hope that the take-home message is that the federal government wants to engage with and help the community move expeditiously toward better cybersecurity defenses, expanded data exchange and improved value-based care delivery."
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com
HIMSS19 Preview
An inside look at the innovation, education, technology, networking and key events at the HIMSS19 global conference in Orlando.