LAS VEGAS – The opening keynote of the 2025 HIMSS Global Conference & Exhibition here on Tuesday opened with HIMSS chapter members from around the world describing the care delivery challenges they're grappling with – and the successes they're achieving – at their own home health systems in all corners of the globe.
This week is an opportunity for healthcare IT leaders worldwide to join together and learn from each other's experiences, gleaning tactics and strategies from other members around the world.
It's a valuable chance to gain key insights for innovation and strategic leadership, education and networking. And as HIMSS board member Elena Sini, chair of the HIMSS Europe Governing Council and the founder of the HIMSS Italian Community, flipped a famous phrase: "Not all that happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas."
As HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf took the stage, he applauded the audience – comprising a substantial portion of HIMSS' 120,000-plus members worldwide – for tackling the hard problems in a fast-evolving healthcare space beset by big challenges.
"If you don't like change, you're in the wrong ecosystem," said Wolf.
He rattled off a partial list of the many headwinds faced by health systems in the U.S. and abroad: changing funding environments, workforce shortages, geographic displacement, the need for care at home, just to name a few.
Add to that an aging population and a new era of "unsettled policies in Washington."
The stakes are high. But so is the will to manage this tsunami of change.
"Every citizen in the world and every single person who works in our delivery systems are fundamentally counting on each and every one of you," said Wolf.
But while HIMSS is a healthcare technology conference, with a sprawling exhibit floor showing off all manner of envelope-pushing innovation – "I defy anyone to try and find a booth that does not mention AI," Wolf joked – these problems will not be solved with tech alone.
Wolf recalled an equation he first learned more than two decades ago: NT + OO = COO. "New technology, plus old organization, equals costly old organization."
As an object lesson in the benefits of combining forward thinking with leading-edge technology, Wolf spent much of the next hour in conversation with Seung Woo Park, president of Seoul, Korea-based Samsung Medical Center, and Dr. Meong Hi Son, the health system's chief medical information officer.
As the world’s first HIMSS Analytics quadruple-validated Stage 7 organization, and the first to receive a perfect HIMSS Digital Health Indicator score, Samsung is an international leader in harnessing information and technology in hugely innovative ways.
And it's been at it for a long time. As Park pointed out, the health system first went filmless way back in 1996 and was paperless by 2008 – a year when just 9% of U.S. hospitals had even a basic electronic health record in place.
Park and Son offered detailed insights into their innovative programs such as DARWIN (Data Analytics and Research Window for Integrated kNowledge) and shared some hard-won success stories and strategies for implementing new workflows and integrating and aligning people, process and technology.
They also showed off two robot friends, Nova and Lumi, who work alongside clinicians at Samsung and help put pediatric patients at ease as they navigate their care journeys. (The expressive doll-sized androids listened along with the conversation, making faces and clapping along with the audience.)
"I brought them here with hope that in the future, more robots will contribute to meaningful work in the hospital," said Son.
Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.