HIMSS 2022 kicked off yesterday in Orlando, Florida. Over at GovDataDownload NetApp’s Travis Honeycutt explores how healthcare IT trends and priorities have changed and how this will affect HIMSS in a post-pandemic world. Read on to learn more.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced rapid digital transformation across practically every organization and industry on our planet. Organizations such as federal agencies, education institutions, and private enterprises were forced to find new ways to operate in a world where any face-to-face interaction could potentially have serious, negative health consequences for everyone involved.

But few industries were as impacted as the healthcare industry, which was simultaneously tasked with leading the response to COVID while having to operate with all of the same pandemic challenges as all other organizations.

Now, as the death, hospitalization, and infection rate of COVID are beginning to wind down, and life is starting to return to what many would consider a “new normal,” the industry is planning to get together for its largest healthcare technology-focused conference of the year – HIMSS. But will attendees at this year’s conference find the same healthcare industry that existed before the pandemic? Will the IT priorities and investments that were needed to weather COVID still be important in a post-COVID world? And how have larger, overarching technology trends and advancements impacted what is possible in healthcare today?

To get answers to these questions, and some insights into what attendees can anticipate at this year’s conference, we sat down with Travis Honeycutt, the District Sales Manager for Federal Healthcare at NetApp.

GovDataDownload (GDD): Has the healthcare industry historically been a rapid adopter of new technologies? Would you say that – as an industry – healthcare is far along in its adoption of advanced IT solutions and embrace of digital transformation initiatives?

Travis Honeycutt: Healthcare typically lags other industries in terms of deploying cutting edge technology solutions and there is a good reason for that.  Healthcare operates in a world where real consequences are felt if something goes wrong.  Normally the healthcare industry will wait till new solutions are proven before they are implemented to provide patient care. 

That being said, healthcare is the driving force behind many advancements that we are making in technology.  Where the industry is cautious in implementing new cutting-edge technology, they more than make up for by driving the advancements we all see in our daily lives. 

GDD: How has the industry been impacted by the pandemic? What changes did the healthcare industry – specifically providers and hospitals – have to make? How did technology and data help them meet these challenges?

Travis Honeycutt: I think the single largest step that the pandemic forced is mobility and flexibility for care.  Pre pandemic telehealth and electronic records were becoming mainstream, but the pandemic put that into overdrive.  This could not have been possible if the IT industry had not been able to make it happen. 

Increased network speeds, increased storage performance, public and private clouds.  All of this came together in somewhat of a perfect storm when the pandemic hit.  All these advancements made it possible for patients to access doctors and gave the doctors remote access to the patient and their data. 

Add advancements in contactless payments and we are now experiencing a fully remote doctor/patient experience. 

GDD: What would you say are the largest IT and technology priorities for healthcare organizations today? Where are they putting the most focus and investment with regard to technology acquisitions and implementations?

Travis Honeycutt: I would say that telehealth is still the biggest investment that the industry is making.  We have made huge advancements in the past two years, but we are just scratching the surface. This new remote world is bringing with it new challenges. 

We will still see large investments made in telehealth. But, on top of that, to make in-person and remote treatment better we are starting to see more focus on artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and personalized medicine.  For healthcare providers to achieve these goals they will be even more focused on data availability and performance. 

GDD: Many don’t realize just how large of a role the federal government plays in delivering healthcare services and coverage to Americans. How have organizations like CMS and the VA – which are directly involved in the delivery of, or payment for, healthcare services – been impacted by modernization and technology adoption in the industry? Where have they been investing? What capabilities have they been working to implement?

Travis Honeycutt: That is a very true statement.  These federal agencies play a huge part in making sure that key initiatives and systems are safe, secure, and accurate.  In many cases, these large-scale initiatives take decades to develop and huge amounts of resources to bring to market. 

Agencies like the VA and CMS work with the private sector to conduct long-term research to bring things like Contactless Payment and Medical Imaging to the greater market.  One of the best examples is the VistA imaging system that the VA helped create.  This took over 20 years of research before it was ready to go live.  VistA has served as the baseline for where we are today for EHRM. 

The Federal Healthcare agencies are pioneering investments in telehealth, medical imaging, artificial intelligence, waste fraud and abuse and so many more.  The tools we have today are a direct result of decades of research and they continue to make strategic investments that will benefit the world for generations to come. 

GDD: With the pandemic seemingly winding down, do you anticipate that many of the changes and new technologies implemented in the healthcare industry will just be the “new normal?” Or do you anticipate that things will return to how they were before the pandemic?

Travis Honeycutt: I don’t think we will ever go back to “normal.”  I think we are living in the new normal for healthcare and it is just the beginning.  We have seen the groundwork laid for remote medicine, personalized care, and so many more advancements. 

The future is extremely exciting, and all the technology tools seem to be meeting the goals of the healthcare industry at the same point in time.  The advancements that we have made in the past two years while fighting our way through this pandemic will ultimately serve us well into the future. 

GDD: The annual HIMSS Conference is slated to start soon. What do you think will be some of the major trends and overarching topics of discussion at this year’s event? What are you most excited to hear about? 

Travis Honeycutt: HIMSS has always been a great conference to see the cutting edge of science and technology for the medical industry.  For me, it has been interesting to see over the past decade how things like Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence have advanced. 

In years past, these tools seemed to be almost science fiction but – as the infrastructure and software has caught up with the theory – they are becoming possible in the real world.  I think I’m most excited to learn about how tools like this will be used to advance remote medicine and personalized care at HIMSS.