Each year, more and more people and companies are sharing their health information technology conference-related insight, experiences, facts and opinions before, during and after the event. Whether you're able to attend the 2017 HIMSS Conference or not, following along virtually via industry newsfeeds, LinkedIn Group discussions, and social media platforms like Twitter can be a good way to maximize the informational value of the conference.
For the past five years, I've been curating, creating and sharing HIMSS-related conference 'content' via my primary Twitter account known as @ShimCode, accounts like @HIMSS12, @HIMSS13 & @HIMSS14 and also @HITConfGuy - a "health information technology conference-only" companion account to this blog.
For 2017, I expect I'll be using a combination of the above three approaches to share with my followers.
Why Follow @HITConfGuy?
Quite simply, to get 'good' HIMSS conference-related content without having to sift through all the advertisements, spam, stale and repetitious tweets.
Note: The official HIMSS hashtag for the 2017 HIMSS Conference is #HIMSS17 and I'm already seeing an increase in the amount of spam, and what I think many would agree are useless tweets, containing the #HIMSS17 hashtag.
What this Account Will Do
1. Only share information related to the HIMSS conference and relevant healthcare IT topics. With some occasional deviation, the focus will be on sharing information about the following topics
#ACO – Accountable Care Organizations and programs in bundled payment, episodes of care-shared savings, and growing participant base
#consumerism - improving member’s overall well-being – medical, social, financial, and environmental
#cybersecurity - protecting the privacy and security of consumer information
#digitalhealth – digital health and connected health
#mhealth – mobile health for improving disease management, member engagement, and data collection/distribution
#pharmacy –pharma costs vs benefits to quality of care and total medical costs
#telemedicine – telehealth and telemedicine for acute and chronic care needs
#interoperability - interoperability and integration topics
2. Monitor alternative sources of information other than Twitter such as blogs, news releases to health industry media sources, content made available to me by followers, and various search mechanisms I've developed over the years.
3. Accept good information and content from others and share it out. Send info to shimcode@gmail.com.
4. Include links to supplemental content and resources associated with certain tweets.
5. Share select vendor info (whitepapers, surveys, content, offers, etc) that are not clearly a sales pitches. Veiled sales pitches may be passed along at my discretion.
6. Verify that all embedded links and embedded content can be accessed, warn about need to login to access content, and other practical considerations.
7. Spare you the excess of the “over-tweeters”
8. Share select info on "booth-bling," tweet-ups, parties and contests.
9. Keep an eye out for the off-beat, intriguing and humorous - and the edgy stuff you'll rarely see others share.
What This Account Won't Do
1. Overuse the #HIMSS17 hash tag
The #HIMSS17 tag is already being used by spammers and way over-used by certain people who should really know better. This account will strive for judicious use of the #HIMSS17 tag.
2. Share the same tweet more than once.
Except for periodic “public service tweets” calling attention to administrative, logistical and general information itemsal service this account provides.
3. Like and re-tweet every tweet mentioning this account.
4. Repeat the same tweet over and over and over and over and over
Good #HIMSS17 Information - Before, During & After
So if you're planning on attending the HIMSS Conference in Orlando or want to follow along virtually, be sure to follow @HitConfGuy on Twitter and consider subscribing to this blog.
