HIMSS Global 2025: AI is everywhere

[00:00:00] Dear listeners, welcome to Faces of Digital Health, a podcast about digital health and how healthcare systems around the world adopt technology with me, Tjasa Zajc. In early March HIMSS Global, the currently biggest global gathering about healthcare IT, took place in Las Vegas.

[00:00:21] A few tens of thousands of people visit HIMSS Global every year and it can take 20 minutes or more to get from one session to another because the space is so big. Therefore, preparation and planning is key. This year, the key topic seemed to be how are companies embedding AI in their solutions. Hospital leaders talked about cybersecurity and political uncertainty impacting the future of digital health development.

[00:00:49] So I asked a few participants what stood out for them and what are their key takeaways they're going to take home with them. The people you are about to hear from are also going to speak at HIMSS Europe, which is taking place from 10 to 12 of June in Paris. You will hear from Guido Gunti, Chief Digital Officer at St. James Hospital in Ireland.

[00:01:14] Matthew Little, Chief Nurse Information Officer and Associate Chief Nurse at the Glucaster Shire Hospital NHS Trust in the US. Rasul Shrestha, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer at Advocate Health in the US. Henrik Martins, Associate Professor in Health Management and Leadership from Portugal. And Rachel Domscombe, based in the UK, the CEO of Open Air International.

[00:01:45] Enjoy the show and if you like what you hear, deliver rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts so other listeners can find the show as well. I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. Now let's dive in.

[00:02:14] Guido, what did you hear here at HIMSS and what kind of stood out to you in terms of content and sessions that you listen to? I think that one of the things that was significantly noticeable compared to last year and other times is just like the emergence of Gen.AI everywhere. That's something that you can see not only in the speakers and the sessions, but also just walking around in the different booths and stuff like that. It's really weird that everything seems to have AI embedded. And it's interesting to see how this is evolving in health care.

[00:02:44] And what's the state of digitalization in your organization, your Chief Digital Officer? In our organization, it's one of the largest public hospitals in Ireland. We have a Cerner-based AHR. But of course, there's still a lot of work that we need to do so that it's not that it's patchwork of different systems and have one thing that is much more integrated. And that's a challenge because it implies a different way of working. So a lot of my mission at the moment is how do we create a data-driven culture?

[00:03:12] Because healthcare professionals, we really care about data, but at the same time, we don't really act on the data that we have. And that's the main challenge at the moment. As a Chief Digital Officer, do you have any ideas on how we could listen to patients better? I believe that one of the things that we need to do, we need to work a lot more on participatory design. It's basically bringing representatives, doing a lot more PPI, like public and patient involvement in the sessions. Having patient representatives in the discussions is key.

[00:03:40] I think that, for example, trying to figure out how you can have a community advocate is key. Because otherwise, we're just deploying technology and not really taking that into consideration. Are there any specific thoughts that stood out for you in the last three days? What did you remember most of? One thing that is completely different when you're here in Kim's Global, as opposed to Europe, is the role of the public system and the healthcare government. That's completely different. Here is a lot much more about the vendors.

[00:04:09] It's a lot much more about the private parties to be involved. And one of the things that I think that in Europe we can learn a lot is about how to actually work and try to redefine our procurement systems and processes, because that's a big challenge for us in that sense. It's difficult for us to try to become innovators and try to involve a lot more of this technology when you don't have the right channels for doing that kind of partnership. So that's something that is really interesting from Kim's Global that I would like to see a lot more in Kim's Europe.

[00:04:40] Rasul Shrestha focused on the challenges leadership teams are occupied with at the moment. So, Kim's 2025 has been really interesting. As many of your listeners and followers know, this is a testing time for us in our industry, especially in North America, which is where we are right now. There are a lot of uncertainties. In many ways, you could look at this as a crisis.

[00:05:07] Much like the pandemic was a crisis for us in healthcare globally, this moment in time that we're in right now is in some ways a crisis of uncertainty, a crisis of lack of clarity, a crisis also of multiple different headwinds and tailwinds that are coming at us. Headwinds such as political pressures, payment reform, but also tailwinds such as generative AI and capabilities around really moving the needle in transformative ways.

[00:05:34] So all of those things that I've talked about are things that are being discussed in pretty intimate ways at Kim's 2025. I had the opportunity to give the opening keynote for the Hymns Amnus Executive Forum on Monday. And it was 40 minutes of pure bliss on the stage talking about all of these different elements, but also discussing real world ideas and solutions and how we can partner right. How?

[00:06:00] Rasu Shrestha talked about the discussions between leaders. Rasu Shrestha talked about the leadership challenges that healthcare leaders are facing at the moment. This is the right time for an awakening for us to really come together and go after some of the hardest challenges that exist in healthcare. So what are some of the key concerns that you see among leaders? Rasu Shrestha talked about the leadership challenges and the leadership challenges. So, lots of concerns.

[00:06:28] One of the biggest concerns today is the lack of clarity or the uncertainty in terms of payment and payment reform. Right? In many ways, politics affects policy and policy affects progress or the lack thereof. Right? And so when you have uncertainty in policy and policy reform, there is a lack of clarity in terms of the progress that you can actually make or not.

[00:06:55] And so whether it's funding cycles that are drying up, whether it's uncertainty in research and academic funding support, the key element here really is in bringing together those components and saying, all right, how do we focus on the real things that matter? And that's what we're talking about here. Whether it's clinical trials and working with pharma and CROs, whether it's artificial intelligence and working with big tech companies or startup companies or really going after patient-related initiatives around experience.

[00:07:24] These are the types of conversations that are happening right here at HIMSS. Rasu, you're coming to HIMSS Europe. What are you going to talk about? The title of your session is Made in DU. What is the US exporting from Europe? The title of your session is Made in DU. I'm really excited about HIMSS Europe.

[00:07:44] One of the things I'm going to talk about is how we're partnering with ERCAD, this Global Experiential Learning Surgical Simulation and Training Center out of Strasbourg and France, and really bringing ERCAD North America to the United States. So ERCAD, for those of you that may not know, is essentially a destination center for surgeons globally. If surgery is your religion, ERCAD is your mecca.

[00:08:13] And so today, surgeons go to Strasbourg, France, and there are several ERCADs in Europe, or to Asia, or to Africa, or even South America to get trained in minimally invasive surgery and robotics and experiential learning and AI and informatics. But now with the formation of ERCAD North America, they'll be able to come to Charlotte, North Carolina, which is where I'm headquartered out of. And really then experience all of these different elements that ERCAD is so famous for.

[00:08:43] Matthew Little reflected on how could we use technology to help nurses. And he reflected the difference between the position of nurses in the US and Europe. I think it's really been looking at the nursing informatics teams and the real appetite to actually make things really better. There's been some real enthusiasm about using the data that we're collecting to actually drive care forward.

[00:09:09] And how do you see that all the data that we're collecting could help nurses in particular? Matthew Little, MD, PhD Nurses spend a lot of time doing risk assessments and actually using that data we're collecting and actually using it to predict falls patterns, predict pressure ulcers, and actually shape the care that we deliver. Matthew Little, MD, PhD In the last few years, there's been a lot of discussions and kind of advocacy on involving nurses in strategies on giving nurses the seat at the table.

[00:09:38] Do you see that is changing? And also, how would you compare the position of nurses in the US and Europe based on what you know? Well, what I've seen so far, the nurses in America are definitely starting to get that get them boys and they've got a strong informatics team there. The UK is starting to get them and the rest of Europe's catching up as well. But there's some real opportunities here to actually start making things better.

[00:10:06] Similarly, Henrik Martins sees a lot of opportunity in Europeans learning to change their mindset and finding new approaches in how to advance digital health in Europe, not just relying on the grants from the EU Commission before making any advancements. We are here in Vegas. So what have you learned here? Are there any sessions that inspired you? Any thoughts? Be as specific as possible.

[00:10:35] To be honest, this is such a big event here in Las Vegas for HIMSS that basically you learn two things. You learn that you need to schedule a lot of meetings with a lot of people. So this definitely needs to happen also in HIMSS Europe. And you learn the power of big networks.

[00:10:52] So what you really see here is a very mature ecosystem. And I think this is what we need to build in Europe, a much more mature ecosystem, more connection between companies large and small, between healthcare providers, academic institutions, standard development organizations. And here you don't know who is who. Everyone comes from their different backgrounds and they talk to each other in a very open minded spirit.

[00:11:19] And I think Europe is learning to do that. But definitely this is what I'm taking home. So can you maybe expand on that a little bit? So what can we learn in Europe and what are you missing in Europe around building new solutions? So I think in Europe, we are having some consortiums with companies and healthcare providers and public and private, but still very few.

[00:11:42] It's still quite difficult to find large scale initiatives that are not, for example, EU funded, but they're still European. So they come out of the ecosystem. So I think we need to create more joint initiatives, more organic that come out of needs and our will as Europeans to build digital health in an interoperable, large scale, powerful, impactful process of change.

[00:12:12] And rather than always wait for the European Commission to make a call and create a project. I think we need to step out of that. That almost sounds like you are asking people to have more confidence. Yeah, I think we need more confidence. We need more inter-fership spirit, but not in the sense of creating your own little SME.

[00:12:41] We have enough SMEs as they have in Europe, but we need more joint people getting together around the table and saying we have this problem. Let's try to get together and fix it rather than wait for the government or the European government, which is the Commission to say that this has to be done. So I think we can move to the next stage of maturity in an ecosystem, which is really to be an ecosystem alive.

[00:13:09] And we've identified a problem. Let's go out and build strengths together. Maybe call for help of the European Commission. That's fine. We have it and it's there for something. And it can be useful partner, but it doesn't have to be only top down. We can do a bottom up innovation. And I think we need to do that. Not against Europe or against China or against any other part of the world.

[00:13:35] But on the other hand, because we have different challenges, specific challenges like multiculturalism, multilinguistic challenges that we have to solve by ourselves. What are you going to talk about at HIMSS Europe? At HIMSS Europe, we're going to look at technology and advancements in digital health from the lens of European health data space, which is the real big change that we have to face in Europe.

[00:14:00] And that's going to drive the next agenda item for the next few years. Basically interoperability, but also patient rights in using their data and moving forward. I think Europe will be positioning itself as a very exciting continent for digital health in the next coming years. Could you count how many projects have happened in Europe to support E-HDS? When would you say those efforts began? How many years ago?

[00:14:28] So actually we've reviewed that. We have a paper on that. Me and my team. More than 10 projects have been done over the last 20 years in EU funds with hundreds of partners to really prepare what we now call European health data space. So it's not like something that came out of some bureaucratic legal department that came up with a regulation.

[00:14:53] Rachel Danscombe also emphasized the evolving role of AI in healthcare. So I also asked her about the connection with open standards and secondary use of data. I think this year at Hems is the year we get real about AI in a really healthy way. So it's not just about hype, it's about lessons learned. And I've learned some really interesting things.

[00:15:19] There's some really good research out there. Listening yesterday to the Nordic delegation, they're talking about real world studies and about proper research into what works and what doesn't work with AI. But it's looking really promising. How does that relate to the open standards? That relates to the open standards because AI is what it eats. So it needs to eat really good data. If it doesn't have great data to be trained on or validated against, then we've got a problem. You're also going to speak at Hems Europe. I'm speaking at Hems Europe. I'm super excited about that.

[00:15:49] Open air is seeing a lot of work within Europe. There are a lot of governments working towards an open data infrastructure. We're really excited to talk with the community and the wider digital health ecosystem at Hems Europe. You are going to moderate a session about EHDS in, no, secondary use of data in the EHDS era. So what do you think about that? So secondary use and yeah.

[00:16:13] So the secondary use of data is really important. We can improve population health. We can make better services for our population. And so I'm super excited to be moderating the session there because there's such a possibility for us to provide the next generation of health systems if we actually get secondary use of data right. Is there anything that you think that we're not talking enough about?

[00:16:35] I always think that we need to talk more about the patient and the citizen and participation. I think it's really interesting getting citizens involved in what we're doing in digital health so they understand and participate as citizen scientists. So from my side, I think in the future we need to get more and more participation.

[00:16:52] One thing that I first hear was that, yeah, this government in the US is not going to regulate AI, which some people have different opinions about. Do you think that the development in the US are going to impact Europe? I think that Europe is going to regulate AI, probably in a fairly sensible way, but that does mean that it will emerge in a slower way, but hopefully safer. I'm pro-regulation. We need some regulation. It needs to be right-wing and it needs to allow innovation to still happen.

[00:17:48] Thank you.