43 himss

“H.I.S.-tory” by Vince Ciotti

© 2011 H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved

Episode # 43:

Before

HIMSS!?

What Came Before HIMSS?• Since everyone is at HIMSS this week, it seems only fitting to

interrupt our HIS-tory segment on vendors one more time...• Just what came before HIMSS? For some of today’s younger CIOs

today, the question may be “Did anything” come before HIMSS??• Well, hold on to your badges as we delve back into pre-HIStory to

tell about what “DP Managers” went to before there were CIOs

• American Hospital Association (AHA) – way back in the 60s & 70s, the “place to be” for HIS vendors was the AHA’s Annual Convention, where mainframe makers like IBM and the BUNCH group competed with the likes of Hill-Rom and Baxter for floor space. I was in installations at SMS at the time, so I never got to go – that privilege was for sales/marketing guys

Big Blue’s Convention!• But even the AHA Convention paled in comparison to IBM’s own

“user group” (that name hadn’t been invented yet!) known as:– Electronic Computing Health Oriented, or ECHO. I hope you

appreciate the photo on slide 1, which is of an actual ECHO folder I collected at the first one I attended over 30 years ago in 1980 at the beautiful Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego.

– I was working in marketing for McAuto by then and so earned the right to mingle with several hundred DP Directors there…

- We were trying to sell our Tandem-based PCS (Patient Care System), or DEC-based HDC mini system, but as you might imagine, they got little traction with the DP Directors back then who were eager to learn about the latest IBM offerings in their 43XX and 30XX mainframes...

And Don’t Forget HFMA’s ANI!• Back in the 70s & 80s, another powerhouse

annual meeting place was the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s ANI (Annual National Institute), the place to meet CFOs! – Remember, back then, DP/MIS departments generally

reported to the Controller. Just like HIMSS gave credence to the title “CIO” in the 80s & 90s, HFMA had given meaning to the title CFO in the 60s & 70s.

• When I was running marketing for HIS Inc. in Brooklyn in the early 80s, we exhibited at many regional conferences, long before any vendor ever heard of HIMSS, let alone sent a booth there:– NEHA – the New England Health Association in Boston– MAHC – Mid-Atlantic Health Congress in Atlantic City– WHA – Western Hospital Association in San Francisco

Local HFMA Chapters• The place to be to meet

prospect and client DP Managers and Controllers was your state’s local HFMA chapter.

• They not only held frequent seminars that we tried to give our pitches at, but actually gave you a chance to work shoulder to shoulder with hospital professionals, like this hard-working group on the left from my days in NJ’s HFMA chapter MIS committee in the late 80s

• (Don’t worry Eileen, Paul & Gil, I won’t give out your last names…

HIMSS HIS-tory• There’s a wonderful pdf file on HIMSS complete history at:

– http://www.himss.org/content/files/HIMSS_HISTORY.pdf

• HIMSS started as HMSS (Hospital Management Systems Society)– Comprised primarily of Management Engineers, HMSS actually sprung out

of a group of pioneers who met at the annual Mid-Atlantic Health Congress, usually held in Sin City, er, that is, Atlantic City, New Joisey.

– The photo below shows HMSS founding management engineers in 1965:

- The first HMSS national convention was held in Baltimore in 1962, when the entire membership was 54:

- 26 Full Members- 8 Associate Members- 14 Affiliate Members- 6 Commercial Members

- Some difference from last year’s crowd of 20,000+!

Adding an “I”!• It was not until 1986 that HMSS renamed itself, adding the “I” to

encompass both information systems and telecommunications professionals, officially changing its name to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

• It was billed as “HIMSS of the AHA,” headquartered in Chicago.• Ironically, in the very next year (1987) HIMSS held its annual

convention in the sin city, Las Vegas, scene of 2012’s caper…• Check out these facts from this first annual convention officially

entitled “HIMSS” (not HMSS, which had run 14 prior annual gigs, mostly in Atlantic City and Baltimore):– 525 people in attendance– Nearly filling the Riviera Hotel– 36 vendors/consulting firm booths

Early Testimonials• The May 1987 issue of Bill

Child’s Healthcare Computing & Communications featured HIMSS as its feature story, and included these testimonials from HIS notables of the time:• Mark Gross of E&Y• Rich Sneider,

consultant• Jim Reep, founder of

First Consulting• Rick Adam of

Baxter/Travenol• Scot Waldrop, CyCare• Jay Toole of AA

Perspective• If you’re lucky enough to have conned your CFO into approving travel to

for this year’s HIMSS, keep this fascinating perspective in mind as you walk among the thousands of vendor booths:– That hall was empty a few days before and will be empty again a few

days later as it sets up for the next convention.– Which is about as long as the sales claims & marketing hype you hear

there will last, until you go back to your hospital’s HIS and reality…