By Tina Reed, Fierce Healthcare | February 5, 2019

With hundreds of sessions available, just trying to figure out which to attend from the HIMSS19 agenda can be a little daunting.

So we took a look through the list and pulled out a few of the timely sessions you may want to check out featuring everything from retail in healthcare to blockchain to IoT to AI.

Here are some educational sessions you’ll want to consider for your HIMSS schedule.

TUESDAY, FEB. 12

Session: PULSE: A Health IT Disaster Response Platform

Speakers: Leslie Witten-Rood, program manager for the California EMS Authority, and Mariann Yeager, CEO of The Sequoia Project

Details: Learn more about how The Sequoia Project is leading the Patient Unified Lookup System for Emergencies (PULSE), a nationwide health IT disaster response platform that can be deployed at the city, county or state level to authenticate disaster healthcare volunteer providers.

10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Session: How Consumer Technology is Revolutionizing Our Daily Lives

Speakers: Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, and Hal Wolf, president and CEO of HIMSS

Details: Hal Wolf will interview best-selling author Gary Shapiro, whose just-released book “Ninja Future” focuses on how businesses can prosper as the digital technology revolution unfolds.

10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Session: An Update on HIPAA Compliance and Enforcement from the HHS Office for Civil Rights

Speaker: Roger Severino, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights

Details: Representing the agency that administers and enforces the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules, Severino will highlight recent HIPAA enforcement actions, future enforcement trends and priorities, and future regulatory and guidance initiatives.

12 to 1 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13

Session: The Interoperability Moonshot

Speaker: Aashima Gupta, director, Global Healthcare Solutions, Google Cloud, Google, Inc. 

Details: Google’s kickoff for the HIMSS19 Developer Lab, where each leader will provide their perspective on moonshots the industry needs to create an interoperable health ecosystem.

9:45 to 10:30 a.m.

Session: Blockchain Privacy, Security, Compliance and Regulation

Speakers: Daniel Bowden, VP and CISO of Sentara Healthcare; David Houlding, principal healthcare lead at Microsoft Corp.; Mitchell Parker, executive director of information security and compliance at Indiana University Health

Details: Blockchains are bound to be a major topic of discussion at HIMSS because of their potential to address some of the biggest problems in healthcare. This panel promises to address some of the biggest hurdles for the tech in healthcare.

10 to 11 a.m.

Session: Predictive Analytics for Data-Driven Care Management

Speakers: Sarika Aggarwal, M.D., chief medical officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization, and Bill Gillis, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization

Details: In this case study, BIDCO’s CMO and CIO will explain how their IT-clinical partnership enabled them to roll out an innovative, analytics-driven approach to care management.

2:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Session: Embracing the IoT: Ideas Are Easy, Execution Is Hard

Speakers: Julian Goldman, M.D., medical director of biomedical engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital, and David Niewolny, director of the healthcare segment at Real Time Innovations

Details: This session will take you on a journey starting with the current state of the IoT in healthcare and highlighting the gaps that exist.

2:30 to 3:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, FEB. 14

Session: Retail Healthcare Care Delivery Evolution

Speakers: Dev Ashish, CIO of GoHealth Urgent Care, and Rehan Shah, regional president of Windstream Enterprise

Details: Changing care delivery models are calling for healthcare organizations to customize their guest and patient experience to attract and retain consumers. Healthcare organizations need to look at retail and other industries to implement lessons learned in consumer engagement to create an effortless patient experience.

10 to 10:25 a.m.

Session: Voice Technology in the Health Ecosystem

Speaker: Sandhya Pruthi, professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic

Details: A look at how voice technology is transforming how providers reach patients and consumers, impact their lives, improve compliance and reduce hospitalizations.

10 to 10:25 a.m.

Session: A Birdseye View of What’s Next in Artificial Intelligence

Speakers: Adam Boehler, senior adviser to the secretary, CMS deputy administrator and director of CMMI; and Steve Wretling, chief technology and innovation officer of HIMSS

Details: Examine new CMS and HIMSS programs debuting at HIMSS19 declaring that artificial intelligence is not artificial, it’s the reality which will continue to augment human intelligence to improve the health of our society.

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Session: What’s next for Federal Health IT Policy: An update on Federal Legislation and Regulations

Speakers: Eli Fleet, director of federal affairs for HIMSS North America, and Josh Roll, associate manager of congressional affairs for HIMSS North America

Details: HIMSS Congressional and Federal Affairs staff will provide updates on the relevant health IT public policy issues facing Congress as well as the Trump administration.

2 to 2:45 p.m.