HIMSS21 Announces Health and Safety Panel

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Recognizing the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic has immensely transformed the health ecosystem, the 2021 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition is set to be the conduit for health professionals to reconnect for education, innovation and collaboration.

HIMSS21 will be both an in-person and digital experience in Las Vegas, Nevada, from Aug. 9-13, so everyone, everywhere can join together to Be the Change. Attendees will engage with world-class speakers and customize their educational programming with preconference symposia and forums, hundreds of highly vetted sessions from industry leaders, renowned keynote speakers and specialty programs to meet distinct needs.

The current environment has prompted HIMSS to pursue comprehensive health and safety measures at HIMSS21. HIMSS has been engaging internal and external experts to assist with health and safety advising. As a part of this approach, HIMSS has been working with a diverse panel of external resources to focus on guiding HIMSS21 procedures, in addition to assisting with a return-to-work strategy. The core health and safety panel is comprised of the following:

  • Eric Quiñones, MD, Chief Healthcare Advisor, Healthcare Consulting, World Wide Technology
    • As a physician executive, strategic thought leader and healthcare innovator, Dr. Quiñones is passionate about improving clinical outcomes, reducing the cost of care, enhancing the patient experience and minimizing clinician burnout through digital healthcare transformation. For more than 20 years, he has helped organizations — from the U.S. military to Fortune 500s to start-ups — bridge the clinical and digital divide to achieve strategic and innovative goals. He has accomplished much of this work as Clinical Director at Allscripts; Physician Manager at Deloitte; Director of Clinical Information Systems at DaVita HealthCare Partners (now Optum Health); National Director of Healthcare at Slalom and recently as VP of Medical Affairs & Business Development at the revolutionary clinical decision support start-up, Decisio Health.
       
  • Justin T. Collier, MD, Chief Healthcare Advisor, Healthcare Consulting, World Wide Technology
    • Collier is a physician executive with dual ABMS Board Certification in Clinical Informatics and PM&R. He leads WWT’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice, focused on delivering healthcare improvement through transformational projects in partnership with clients globally. His work spans from the world’s largest health systems and life sciences companies to the small but mighty. Dr. Collier collaborates and coordinates efforts among WWT’s OEM partners and internal teams to improve the healthcare ecosystem for all and ensure optimal outcomes. Leveraging WWT’s unique capabilities, he works to enable and accelerate innovative initiatives that improve care, increase efficiencies, transform the patient experience, streamline clinical workflows, enhance team communication and empower collaboration. Dr. Collier previously served more than seven years as a Division CMIO with HCA Healthcare.
       
  • Sue Feldman, RN, MEd, PhD, Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in Health Informatics in the School of Health Professions, University of Alabama at Birmingham.
    • In addition to her roles as Professor and Director, she is senior scientist at the Informatics Institute in the School of Medicine at UAB. Her research is primarily focused on health information systems for social good and wellness. Dr. Feldman has over 30 years clinical experience that she combines with her informatics experience to bring a unique blend to all that she does. She is also Chair of the Health Informatics Accreditation Council for the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education.
    • Feldman led a team to develop the GuideSafe platform of tools in the fight against COVID-19 for the state of Alabama. GuideSafe has been in use across K-12 districts and Higher Education in AL to keep schools open and students on campus. Healthcheck, the daily symptom assessment tool, sees over 250,000 daily users. The event passport has been used for entrance to college football and other large scale events.
       
  • Tony Rose, Founder & CEO Proof Market
    • Proof Market was founded to empower individuals to take custody of and control their own data with emerging privacy by design Digital Identity technology. The company initiated the Linux Foundation Public Health COVID-19 Credentials Initiative, the US Vaccine Credentials Focus Group, and led the introduction of AB 2004 in California authorizing verifiable credentials for COVID-19 and other medical test results. Proof Market developed and contributed the MedCreds platform to the Linux Foundation, helping to keep the film industry operating during the pandemic.
    • Tony is on the drafting committee for the Good Health Pass Collaborative Interoperability Framework, at the Trust over IP Foundation. Proof Market is now developing the Good Health Pass specification in open source at the Linux Foundation for Public Health.

In addition to the group listed above, HIMSS consulted with other key experts in public health, population health, epidemiology, event planning and execution, digital health, applied technology, and law, among other areas. HIMSS is incorporating current public health guidance, input from internal and external community members, stakeholders and evolving best practices. Please refer to the HIMSS21 Health and Safety Hub for more details.

Join changemakers — in person and digitally — as we reimagine health together.

View the full HIMSS21 schedule and program.
Register to attend HIMSS21.

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