VoiceIt: “This is really psychology”

(HealthTech Wire / VoiceIt) - At the World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition (WoHIT) in Copenhagen, Denmark, the European Commission and HIMSS Europe announced that they would be teaming up for their respective eHealth conferences from 2010 onwards. HealthTech Wire spoke to Stephen Lieber, President and CEO of HIMSS, about the rational behind this decision.

Published: 11/07/2008

Mr. Lieber, three years ago in Geneva, HIMSS began an expansion process with the goal of establishing a global platform for the exchange of know-how in health IT. How far have you come?

The original premise of WoHIT was to create a gathering place for the European health IT community without regard to borders. HIMSS as an organiser does not have its own eHealth agenda. Our objective was to create an environment where we have a world-class faculty for health IT from all over world, and in particular from all over Europe. And we have reached that: this year we have over 2,000 attendants, and we have sessions with experts and delegates from all over the globe. I really think we have made tremendous progress from three years ago in Geneva where we launched this concept. We are doing the same thing now in Asia and in the Middle East. Our basic concept is to learn from others, and to look beyond our own neighbourhood to make healthcare safer and more affordable.

What were the particular difficulties in Europe?

Our biggest learning curve was conference organising. Organising conferences in Europe is different from organising conferences in the US or in Hong Kong. In terms of health IT, though, there are far more similarities than differences. There are three main issues in healthcare at the moment: cost, quality and access. And this is true regardless of the kind of health system you have. Costs are too high, quality is not as high as you might want it to be, and even in government-funded health systems there are issues of and discussions about access to medical services. The key to success for WoHIT is to recognise that there are best practices and case studies in places you might not have looked.

Critics say that, because of this broad approach, the WoHIT only scratches the surface. What is discussed here does not necessarily relate to the problems of a CIO in Spain, for example, because the health systems are so different...

You know, they are not that different! Yes there are differences, of course there are. Dealing with one health authority is different from dealing with another one. But basic challenges for healthcare are the same. Healthcare is about providing the best possible care to most or all people at an affordable price. There is no difference anywhere in the world. It is clear that the solutions to these challenges vary in response to the resources you have. But still there are lessons to be learned from others. We recognise that people tend to want to listen to people from their own region. But if a German CIO only talks to German CIOs, he will never benefit from lessons learned in Spain or Denmark. There are unique needs. But there is also a need to understand more globally what people from different backgrounds have learned. As a CIO, I have got to be smart to find out what works for me. And this is something that WoHIT provides, something which no other conference in Europe provides. Nobody else is looking at health IT from a broad European or even global perspective.

Can you explain some of the thinking behind having the World of Health IT linked to the European Commission’s ministerial conference on eHealth?

In the European market place, the goal of the European Commission is to establish pan-European guidelines for eHealth at policy level, enabling countries to then adopt their own specific strategies. So from a policy standpoint, the EC plays a very important role. It is a very natural thing, then, to bring policy makers together with end users. Because what you don’t want to happen is for policy to be made in a vacuum without any connection to the people who ultimately use the technology. So I think it is an extremely important connection to be made. What we actually achieve through the link is even greater: it is a three-way connection between policy makers, users and manufacturers.

There is some irritation about why the EC would want to ally so closely with a US organisation. Can you comment on that?

We are not a US organisation. I mean we are a legal entity in Belgium as well as a US corporation. HIMSS has always had members worldwide. We operated in the US exclusively until four years ago. But we have opened an office in Brussels for the WoHIT and one in Singapore for our Asian conference. The US organisation really has no influence on these conferences. Importantly, as I said before, HIMSS does not have its own eHealth agenda. We bring people together, and we happen to be pretty good at it. Furthermore, we are doing it as a non-profit organisation, so we are not trying to make money out of it. I understand the irritation from a psychological standpoint, but this is really psychology. We established our legal presence in Europe because we want to avoid people thinking that there is a bunch of Americans trying to take over European eHealth policy or practice. We are not the experts. The people who are here are the experts. Our contributors, our delegates, those are the people to turn to in order to see who is going to influence IT politics in Europe.

When HIMSS decided to come to Europe, did you look at collaborating with a European organisation rather than going it alone? And did you feel that there was a gap to be filled?

Yes and yes. Yes, we do partner with existing European organisations such as COCIR, EUROREC and ETHEL. And we also saw that there was a piece missing. There was no pan-European conference. There was no conference that focused on the triangle of policy makers, end users and manufacturers. Such a conference was also missing in Asia, and it was missing in the Middle East as well.

Two years ago, the European Commission’s ministerial conference on eHealth was tied with the national health IT conference in Germany. Is that something that we will see again in the future?

Our expectation clearly is that the cooperation between HIMSS Europe and the EC is not a one-off. We will do that in Spain in 2010. And we want to do that in Hungary in 2011, and in Belgium in 2012, and hopefully further down the line, as the European presidency rotates.

Would HIMSS Europe allow national conferences to be co-located with the upcoming ministerial eHealth conference of the EC and WoHIT?

Absolutely. I mean, it’s important to recognise the opportunities: if we can have one exhibition instead of two or three, this will save the companies money. They do not have to run to multiple events. So if there is a national organisation interested in cooperating, we are open. We very much want to put joint programmes together because of the efficiency that this can create.

Mr. Lieber, thank you for your time and answers. (HTW)

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This is a HealthTech Wire VoiceIt interview.

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