The HIMSS Expo is the annual coming-out ball of the Healthcare & Information Management Systems Society. This year, the HIMSS Expo was held at the Georgia World Congress Center, in Atlanta, Georgia.

With the emphasis of healthcare over the past year, and my intention to make something of the chaos in this space, I was extremely eager to see what the hullabaloo was all about. I attended this event courtesy of HP*. My coverage of the event will be in three segments: HP @ HIMSS 2010 and an accompanying video series to HP @ HIMSS 2010; a general overview of the show, and my conclusions, including summaries of the public portions of the conversations I had with HP executives, and information gleaned from the media luncheon provided by HP.

HP @ HIMSS 2010
For HIMSS 2010, HP set up a booth created around healthcare/life science solutions.

This was very surprising to me as quite a few booths featured products that I viewed as direct competitors to HP’s offerings. However, as Jared Walker, Lead Technologist for HP Worldwide Life Sciences Projects informed me, HP views its role in this space as that of facilitator and enabler. Several HP partners, and their accompanying HP

HP Booth Tour
I asked him to provide me with a tour of the HP booth.

We started out with (HP Partner) DynaTouch, which makes secure kiosks for healthcare. These kiosks feature touch-enabled screens that, when connected to a facility’s access-control and EMR/HER suites, allow patients to retrieve information using a rich interface without human intervention.

HP @ HIMSS 2010 -001 - A Walk around the HP Booth with Jared Walker

 

From there, we were shown clinical input devices, from a Motion Computing C5 slate PC targeted at nurses, to several models of HP all-in-one systems, the TouchSmart 9100 and MS218, and the Compaq 8000 Elite ultra-slim desktop. A Panasonic ToughBook was also in attendance.

HP @ HIMSS 2010-002 Talking with Jared Walker

 

We moved on to scanners, where the HP ScanJet 9000 was featured. While it is by all indication a very capable scanner, the highlight in scanners for me was the HP ScanJet 7000n.

Next up, HP’s Frank Rook took us through a new solution in digital printing, the creation of a secure document. I was unexpectedly fascinated by this, a solution whereby you purchase a hardware/software product which enables the use of plain paper to generate a secure output. If you have ever had to purchase secure paper for printing prescriptions as I have had to for MedikLabs, you would understand.

HP @ HIMSS 2010 - Secure Printing with plain paper using HP Printers

 

The Digital Hospital is a solution that has won HP several design wins around the world and is just introducing into the US market.

This concept is far-reaching, but solves several provisioning challenges for hospitals while striving to improve the quality of patient care. If I look at the chaos, however organized, around the providers at MedikLabs when the example of an emergency Caesarian Section surgery is required versus the HP Digital Hospital product, the improvement is impressive.

In the video below, Jared walks us through the process.

HP @ HIMSS 2010 - The Digital Hospital

 

Patient well being is another issue. For that, HP had their Partner PDI showcase two of their patient information and entertainment systems.

Based on PCs, the PDI systems were touch-enabled, and consisted of tabletop and swingarm-mounted systems. Another feature of these systems is that they utilize desktop virtualization technologies, both of them using Citrix, I believe.

HP @ HIMSS 2010 - PDI Patient Information System

 

We then moved on to Nurse Notification systems. The video describing this is below

HP @ HIMSS 2010 - Nurse Notification System

 

Digital signage is all the rage here, as evidenced by the big LCD displays all over the booth. I need to contact the digital signage person at HP in order to snag a unit for a review using the BrightSign controllers ASAP.

Next, HP servers! Seeing the c7000 enclosure after just coming from a couple of days spent with the Blade Server Team at HP for the HP Infrastructure Tech Day, was pretty cool. Having HP place it in a solution was cooler.

Finally, the Microsoft Surface Table. Running a custom medical imaging app, this table showed off the advantages a multi-touch interactive surface brings to healthcare. Moreover, the custom app was not just limited to the mungo expensive Surface: HP have the app running on another TouchSmart 9100 Business PC!

HP @ HIMSS 2010 - The Microsoft Surface Table

 

In all, setting actual applications running on HP-provisioned hardware or backbone, took a lot of, ahem, backbone on the part of the booth strategists. It was contextually sound, and I believe it showed off HP alliances well.

Disclosures
I have been embedded at this event courtesy of HP, which is sponsoring all my expenses.
My thoughts, opinions, and conclusions however, remain mine, and are not subject to any review by HP.
This endeavor is NOT one of the consulting services provided by me on behalf of Logikworx or Coolers International, plc.