HIMSS Launches mHealth Initiative

Recognizing the increasing prominence of mobile health (mHealth), the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has launched a new initiative, mHIMSS, to provide healthcare leaders with a possible best use of mobile technology practices and stakeholders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the potential of mobile. The goal HIMSS says is to improve care and safety while ensuring costs are better controlled. The HIMSS Board of Directors unanimously approved this new initiative.

According to according to the May 2010 article, “Trends in Mobile Medicine, Smart Phone Apps for Physicians,” published in FirstWordSM Dossier, 72 percent of US physicians have a smart phone with that number expected to reach more than 80 percent in 2012. Edna Boone, M.A., CPHIMS, and senior director of the Mobile Health Initiative at HIMSS, says mHIMSS will address related operations, security, policy, and legal and integration capabilities related to mobile technology use, workflow issues, and data exchange in the healthcare system.

mHIMSS membership is free to all current individual HIMSS members, who can opt-in by logging into the membership section of the website. Members will receive an e-newsletter, invitations to mHIMSS events and education, access to the new website and more. The mobile arm of HIMSS also plans to create a privacy-security toolkit specific to mobile and wireless technologies, create an educational track on mobile health and a mobile knowledge center on the HIMSS12 exhibit floor and host events at the international, national and regional level.

There will also be an advisory council with members who are payers, providers, policy-makers, patient representatives, and others, to review, identify and develop overall policy strategies related to mobile technology.