Conference to explore transforming healthcare through information technology

KALAMAZOO—A senior advisor for innovation and advanced analytics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine headlines a speaker lineup focusing on Transforming Healthcare through Information Technology at this year's International Conference on Healthcare Information Technology Advancement on Oct. 30 and 31.

Hosted by Western Michigan University's Center for Healthcare Information Technology Advancement, the biennial conference explores topics related to service innovation and stakeholder engagement and is designed for healthcare IT specialists, clinical practitioners, consumers, researchers and students.

The event is open to the public and will be held at the WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine in downtown Kalamazoo. Registration is $249 and includes continental breakfast and lunch on both Friday and Saturday, and dinner on Friday.

Keynote address and other talks planned

UNC's Jason Burke will present a keynote talk titled Transforming the Health and Life Sciences Ecosystem through Advanced Analytics at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30.

Burke is senior advisor for innovation and advanced analytics at UNC as well as principal at Burke Advisory Group. With a career spanning clinical research, organizational development and enterprise information technology, Burke’s current work focuses on health industry transformation through strategy design, data sciences and emerging technologies.

In addition to Burke, the conference offers numerous speakers, panels, breakout sessions and research presentations, featuring physicians, industry leaders and top researchers in the field of health informatics and information technology, including:

• Doug Dietzman, executive director, Great Lakes Health Connect
  Topic: Connected Health—Connected Communities
• Robin Sarkar, chief information officer, Lakeland Health.
  Topic: Lakeland Health: Our IT Transformation Journey.
• Sue Schade, chief information officer, University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers.
  Topic: High Impact IT—Making a different at UMHS.
• Joseph Tan, professor, McMaster University.
  Topics: A Continuance Model for Knowledge-Based Clinical Decision Support Systems (KB-CDSS): Theories, Methods and Practices.
• Michael Weiner, chief medical information officer, IBM Healthcare.
  Topic: IBM Watson Project—Impacts on Future Healthcare.

Special messages are planned from the following:

• Hal Jenson, dean, WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine.
• Tim Pletcher, executive director, Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services.
• Prabhash Tatineni, chief medical information officer, Borgess Health.

Breakout sessions

In addition, the conference will feature a panel of chief medical informatics officers for a discussion titled Electronic Health Records 2.0: From Data to Information on Friday morning. The panel will be composed of CMIOs from Beaumont Health, Borgess Health, Bronson Healthcare, Lakeland Health and University Michigan Health Systems. During the event, participants can choose from six breakout sessions:

• Physicians’ Advice
• HIT Architects’ Update
• Healthcare Informatics
• HIT/HIM Graduate Education
• Consumers’ Experiences
• Mobile Health and Legal Issues

Additionally, multi-track research papers and special presentations will provide other perspectives on this year’s theme.

For more information or to register, visit wmich.edu/ichita or contact the Conference Coordinator, Rachael Bower, at rachael.i.bower@wmich.edu or (269) 387-5411.