Professional Documents
Culture Documents
-tory
Vince Ciotti
by
Episode # 43:
Before HIMSS!?
2011 H.I.S. Professionals, LLC
When I was running marketing for HIS Inc. in Brooklyn in the early 80s, we exhibited at many regional conferences, long before any vendor ever heard of HIMSS, let alone sent a booth there:
NEHA the New England Health Association in Boston MAHC Mid-Atlantic Health Congress in Atlantic City WHA Western Hospital Association in San Francisco
HIMSS HIS-tory
There s a wonderful pdf file on HIMSS complete history at:
http://www.himss.org/content/files/HIMSS_HISTORY.pdf
Adding an I !
It was not until 1986 that HMSS renamed itself, adding the I to encompass both information systems and telecommunications professionals, officially changing its name to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). It was billed as HIMSS of the AHA, headquartered in Chicago. Ironically, in the very next year (1987) HIMSS held its annual convention in the sin city, Las Vegas, scene of this year s caper Check out these facts from this first annual convention officially entitled HIMSS (not HMSS, which had run 14 prior annual gigs, mostly in Atlantic City and Baltimore): 525 people in attendance Nearly filling the Riviera Hotel 36 vendors/consulting firm booths
Early Testimonials
The May 1987 issue of Bill Child s Healthcare Computing & Communications featured HIMSS as its feature story, and included these testimonials from HIS notables of the time: Mark Gross of E&Y Rich Sneider, consultant Jim Reep, founder of First Consulting Rick Adam of Baxter/Travenol Scot Waldrop, CyCare Jay Toole of AA
2012 Perspective
If you re lucky enough to have conned your CFO into approving travel to Las Vegas for this year s HIMSS, keep this fascinating perspective in mind as you walk among the 1,000+ booths:
That entire hall was empty a few days before HIMSS and will be empty again a few days later as it sets up for the next convention. Which is about as long as the sales claims & marketing hype you hear there will last, until you go back to your hospital s HIS and reality