Reaction to The World of Health IT 2010: “positively surprised”

Published: 03/19/2010

BERLIN, GERMANY - (HealthTech Wire / Perspective) - The first joint eHealth conference of the European Commission and HIMSS Europe (“The World of Health IT Conference & Exhibition”) has come to an end. So has it been a success? HealthTech Wire asked various exhibitors to comment on their experiences in Barcelona, and there is a common denominator: most were skeptical at first, but “positively surprised” by the end.

For example BridgeHead, specialists in data management and archiving. “We did not have high expectations when we came to Barcelona,” says Tony Cotterill, BridgeHead’s founder and CEO. “But we made some really good contacts and had some interesting conversations.” Most customers of the UK-based company come from North America, but the European market is becoming increasingly interesting for BridgeHead, with many medical institutions in the old world struggling with data management and archiving issues.

“Our solution for Healthcare Storage Virtualization makes life a lot easier for our customers, and with our Healthcare Data Management solution we are able to make data from various sources available and usable,” said Cotterill. BridgeHead’s services are also valuable in the event of disasters, since the company offers various possibilities for backing up data. “We restored the data of several hospitals after hurricane Katrina,” said Cotterill.

“Too close to HIMSS in the US”

Mike Fuller, Director of Marketing UK at US-based InterSystems, is also satisfied with this year’s exhibitions at the World of Health IT: “We participated in the IHE interoperability showcase and got some good responses to that.” Interoperability is InterSystems’ home turf: its Ensemble platform is among the leading solutions that bring together all the different information systems in use in modern hospitals or care networks.

Fuller said that customers were not only interested in Ensemble, but also in a new Business Intelligence solution that was shown by InterSystems in Barcelona. “Our technology allows for BI analyses in real time. There is no need for separate data storage. This dovetails with our recurring themes: it is the data quality that counts and not the application.”

Bernard Algayres, General Manager eHealth at GE Healthcare IT EMEA, also came to Barcelona with mixed feelings. But he was delighted with the event, since there was some good traffic at the GE booth. Bringing together the European Commission’s eHealth Conference and the WoHIT was the right approach, Algayres said. “If I can be critical, this event was staged too close to the American HIMSS conference which took place just two weeks earlier. These two events should be held further apart in future.”

"Interesting customer contacts”

GE showcased its new eHealth portfolio in Barcelona – the result of a cooperation agreement with German-based ICW. GE IT has been well positioned in the field of clinical information systems for several years, but customers are increasingly calling for IT solutions to be able to interact with each other, both within an institution and across institutional borders. “This is exactly what we can offer now. And the integrated view that our eHealth solutions provide is by no means limited to GE products.” Algayres is convinced that a pan-European eHealth event like WoHIT is ideal for making new customer contacts: “Not only did we have networking traffic, we also met some very interesting customers,” he said.

David Magboulé, Marketing Coordinator Iberia for imaging specialist Carestream Health, concurs: “We have also been impressed. We have seen some CIOs at our booth, most of them from Spain, and also a number of employees from hospital IT departments all over Europe who were interested in what we have to offer.” The new Version 11 of Carestream’s SuperPACS solution attracted the most interest, he said. SuperPACS is a tool that connects existing PAC solutions, irrespective of vendor. “It is a solution that is particularly suitable for bigger hospitals or multi-site hospitals, and also for regional care networks.”

Asta Frondelius of Tieto Corporation was also very pleased with what she saw in Barcelona. “This year’s WoHIT was a great arena for profiling us as one of the leading healthcare and welfare ICT solutions providers in Europe. We had pre-booked many customer meetings, but were also delighted to meet a lot of new customers interested in Tieto.” Since Tieto – like InterSystems – is heavily engaged in the Swedish National Patient Summary, it came as no surprise that this solution attracted so much customer attention. “But there was also considerable interest in our clinical pathway solution, designed to help optimize care processes in hospitals and thus enable high-quality care and deliver financial benefits.”

“A genuinely international crowd”

Anne Durand-Badel, Regional Marketing Manager Healthcare Solutions at Nuance, was also enthusiastic about the event: “We had a fantastic week in Barcelona. The WoHIT meeting has been surprisingly successful for Nuance. We expected it to be a slow event, but this year was way more active than expected.” Nuance’s speech recognition technology captured the attention of healthcare providers and industrialists, she said: “We gave several demonstrations on the booth.”

One reason for the success of WoHIT 2010, Durand-Badel said, may well have been the attractive location. Barcelona is a fantastic city and Spain is one of the forerunners of eHealth in Europe. “But the fact that WoHIT was associated with the European community eHealth conference certainly helped make it a really good event this time. For the first time at WoHIT, I had the impression there was a genuinely international crowd.”

News from exhibitors at The World of Health IT is at www.healthtechwire.com/wohit.

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