HIMSS is right around the corner. 

It's one of our favorite conferences of the year, as we get to see many of our healthcare customers all in one place.  As I mentioned in my last post, if you're attending the conference this year, please plan to stop by our booth (#7339) and say hello, or check out the presentations by Imprivata's customers. OhioHealth and Southwest Washington Medical Center will be discussing the ‘Paperless Hospital' and ‘HIPAA Audits' respectively.  With all the focus on healthcare now, what trends am I going to be looking for at HIMSS this year?  Here are a few topics that our customers have shared with us:

• Desktop Virtualization - The healthcare industry is at the forefront of adopting desktop virtualization. CIOs have embraced the technology as a way to reduce the IT costs associated with desktop maintenance and to improve user productivity. As virtualization continues to proliferate, it will be interesting to hear about how these healthcare organizations are applying strong authentication to manage user identities, roles and access policies in this new virtualized environment where policies can be applied to even control the type of desktops that a user can run. The coordination and enforcement of access policies across this virtualized environment is a critical next-step in the adoption of this technology.
• Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) - According to a recent survey conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine, only 9 percent of hospitals have adopted EMRs to date, with the exorbitant costs of the systems being the main barrier. As vendors try to figure out where they are in EMR development, I expect to hear how hospitals are taking an incremental approach to supporting EMR such as digitizing records on smaller scales before a major roll out. With so many things to consider, I'll l be most interested in learning how this "walk before you run" approach impacts data security and how organizations review their policies around providing stronger user authentication for to prevent data breaches.

So what topics and trends are you most excited about heading into HIMSS?  

Email me and let me know, or stop by our booth at the conference tell me what's on your mind.