Happy New Year!
From all of the hard-working, talented, and energetic people here at iNTERFACEWARE, welcome to 2017.
We know it’s going to be a great year! For starters, iNTERFACEWARE will be celebrating 20 years of making healthcare integration easier. When our CEO Eliot Muir established iNTERFACEWARE in 1997, he did so with the goal of improving communication within the healthcare field. Today, the Iguana integration engine is used to connect systems, monitor transactions, and automate workflows for more than 800 healthcare providers and software companies around the world. It’s something we are proud of, and it is certainly worth celebrating.
Speaking of celebrating, our entire staff will be getting together next week for our annual holiday party. This year, we’ll be enjoying some fine food and some bowling action here in Toronto. Personally, I’m quite excited: bowling is right up my alley. But I’ll spare you the details about why I enjoy bowling so much. Okay, no more bowling puns – three strikes and you’re out.
After a fun night celebrating all of our hard work and accomplishments from the last year, it will be all hands on deck as we prepare for the HIMSS conference and exhibition. This year’s conference will take place at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, from February 19th – 23rd. The HIMSS conference is something that our company really looks forward to every year. HIMSS represents an opportunity for us to meet and speak with others striving to improve healthcare through innovation. Whether talking about common challenges, discussing exciting projects that people are working on or sharing thoughts on the current healthcare integration landscape, HIMSS is a great learning experience. So, if you’re attending HIMSS this year, stop by for a quick chat. Need a few more reasons to visit us at our booth?
- SWAG! This year we’ve got some great stuff to give away to everyone who stops by our booth (we promise there won’t be any pens).
- We’ll have some really fun activities to do at the booth.
- Fancy talking integrations? Members from our professional services and product development teams will be on hand to talk.
HIMSS is just the beginning however. 2017 looks like it will be a very interesting year for the healthcare industry as a whole. I thought I would end this post with some food for thought for 2017.
5 Thoughts for 2017
- Will more integration teams start taking advantage of FHIR this year? We’ve talked extensively over the past few months about the many benefits of FHIR, and with the initial normative release of FHIR scheduled for sometime later this year, we should start to see more FHIR projects in development in 2017.
- Is 2017 the year that mobile health app development explodes? There are over 2 million apps available in the App store, but a mere fraction of these are healthcare apps. With the healthcare industry finally embracing APIs, here is hoping that developers will jump on board and create some innovative apps.
- What impact will Donald Trump have on the healthcare landscape in the U.S.? Will he repeal the Affordable Care Act as he has hinted at in the past?
- MACRA. We know that MACRA will have a big impact on both hospitals and clinicians. And we know that the the act represents significant changes to the way that Medicare doctors are reimbursed by rewarding quality care over volume. But how will that play out in the real world? There are serious concerns, some of which were addressed in the final MACRA ruling, from smaller practices who are concerned about the cost and administrative burden associated with reporting quality metrics.
- Finally, what are your integration goals for 2017? What exciting projects are you and your team working on?
I encourage you to comment down below with your thoughts and opinions. It is shaping up to be a very important year for the healthcare industry, especially in the United States. But with the common goal of improving communication in healthcare to create better patient outcomes, this year could be a big leap forward for healthcare integration.
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