I was asked to represent Verato during the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC) conference held in Indianapolis. Set in an old train station it was clear the HIE community was going places. The conference was thriving with ideas to improve patient care, patient experience, and overall outcomes. Donald Rucker, the chief of the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology (ONC), spoke and challenged us to achieve more with Health IT to solve interoperability and value-based care objectives.
In the frenzy of client meetings and exceptional speaking sessions, I was able to catch my breath and notice the conference was larger this year than it was last year. More people and organizations have joined SHIEC and that was visible at the end of each session when people hustled about for the next topic on the agenda. The vendor community was also substantially larger this year with all sponsorship opportunities being filled.
There was a buzz about Verato and our booth location in the exhibit hall was perfect. It was exciting to talk to attendees about our new Universal MPI that uses our Referential Matching technology.
Topics on Patient Centered Data Home (PCDH), Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), Interoperability, and Behavioral Health were some of my favorites. Perhaps because their use cases depend tremendously on accurate identity resolution. I counted plenty of new business cards and LinkedIn connections made during my 3 days in Indy.
The weather cooperated and so there were some excellent opportunities to engage professionals in health information exchange outside the conference including the Verato and Forcare receptions. I thought the Verato reception was exceptional and it had a great view of downtown.
The SHIEC conference is always exciting for us because as a patient matching and identity resolution vendor, health information exchanges (HIEs) are perfect customers. Few organizations feel the pain of patient matching as much as HIEs. But I’m proud to say Verato is helping HIEs that cover over 10% of the US population to resolve identities and automatically resolve their duplicate records.
I look forward to going back to the SHIEC conference next year!