Happy New Year everyone! I know many of you had a very busy year in 2014, and it looks as though 2015 is shaping up to be another year of tremendous activity for those of us in the healthcare industry.

I would like to thank each of you for being a member of our award-winning HIMSS Southern California chapter! Your involvement is an important reason for our success, and we truly value your membership. As we kick off a New Year, I’d like to provide an update on how we wrapped up this past quarter for our chapter and share some breaking news just announced.

Looking at the healthcare industry at large, health care reform continues to play a key role in shaping our future. One excellent example of this can been seen by the federal government’s newly published proposed rules for the next phase of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), which encourages broader participation in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and Telehealth tools to promote the use of health IT to improve care coordination. Another example can be seen with the Medical Electronic Data Technology Enhancement for Consumers’ Health (MEDTECH) Act, introduced into the Senate this month. This bill is designed to exempt low-risk medical software and mobile medical applications from the oversight of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and offers stakeholders an alternative answer to the question of what the FDA’s role should be in regulating health IT. The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) also reported this month that Electronic Health Record (EHR) testing will be a priority in the coming year, and signaled intentions to develop more robust testing methods to bolster interoperability and usability.

In Southern California, our chapter continues to be uniquely positioned to further health care reform through our educational events and volunteer opportunities. This past quarter, many of you have attended our chapter events, served one of our Chapter committees, or taken advantage of the educational offerings available to you as members of HIMSS. Your involvement has been a significant reason for many of the following chapter highlights.

Our Chapter’s Advocacy Committee, led by Ian Slade, has truly been making an impact in Southern California and across the nation this past quarter. The HIMSS Southern California Chapter recently received the highest honor bestowed for advocacy accomplishments from HIMSS - the Presidential Level of Advocacy Award for 2014! Advocacy committee member Leslie Bruce represented the HIMSS SoCal membership with a visit to our state senator in October. Ian and HIMSS Southern California Chapter President-Elect, Sri Bharadwaj, traveled to Washington D.C. in September to represent our Chapter in the HIMSS 13^th Annual Public Policy Summit.

In the first of its kind two-day session by a HIMSS chapter, the HIMSS National Government Relations team accompanied our Chapter’s Advocacy team on December 4^th and 5^th for a return trip to our nation’s capital. Ian Slade, Sri Bharadwaj, and the HIMSS National team held individual healthcare advocacy meetings with 11 of our California senators and Congressional representatives. They discussed key health care issues and provided comprehensive explanations for initiatives such as support for HR 5481 – the FLEX-IT Act, Meaningful Use 2, ICD-10 preparations, value-based purchasing, interoperability, ONC funding, and Tele-health services and reimbursement.

Our Chapter’s Academic Alliance Community (AAC) committee has also truly been busy this past quarter “bridging the gap between academia and industry”. AAC chair, Bella Zaghi, and her volunteer team held successful career roundtable events at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of San Diego (USD). At the USD event, 40 students and five executives experienced an exciting session, with information about the Chapter’s scholarship, internship, and mentorship initiatives being shared. Over 91 students have joined the HIMSS Southern California Chapter in Q4 2014 as a result of these programs, bringing our emerging professional membership total to 191!

The HIMSS Southern California Chapter Programs Committee, led by Programs Vice-President Geri Pavia, has done a fantastic job over the last several months putting on three highly successful events. On October 2, 2014, Program Chairs Kelley Golden and Shona Cerami organized our 3^rd Annual Golf Tournament and Charity Fundraiser event with the Make-A-Wish Foundation at the Pelican Hills Golf Course in Newport Beach, CA. Over 100 chapter members and guests attended this wildly successful event. A big thanks to our chapter sponsors for their support and attendance.

In another first of its kind event for HIMSS SoCal, 35 chapter members participated in our first Certified Professional in Healthcare Information Management Systems (CPHIMS) Certification Review Course and Exam session on November 7^th, 2014 at National University in Costa Mesa, CA. Sam King and I served as the instructors for the day. I am thrilled to report that 19 out of the 29 individuals who took the exam passed, bringing our total CPHIMS certified members to 77 individuals! Plans are underway to offer CPHIMS and Certified Associate in Healthcare Information Management Systems (CAHIMS) review course and exam sessions in San Diego and Los Angeles during the month of February 2015. If you missed the November 7^th course and would like to attend an upcoming review course, stay tuned for updates about these two events.

On November 18, 2014, over 348 individuals attended our sold out 7^th Annual CIO Forum at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA. In partnership with the California Healthcare Information Executives Forum (CHIEF) group, Program Chairs Scott Cebula and Steve Edison organized an amazing program that focused on how electronic records are taking healthcare organizations to the next level. This year’s event featured an outstanding group of speakers, including Barry Arbuckle, the President and CEO at MemorialCare Health System, Scott Joslyn, the CIO at MemorialCare Health System, John Jay Kenagy, the CIO at Legacy Health, Adrienne Edens, the CIO at Sutter Health, East Bay Region, Kara Marx, the CIO at Methodist Hospital, and Michael Pfeffer, the CIO and CMIO at UCLA Health System.

We are very happy to share that our Chapter will be hosting a two-day Nursing Informatics Prep Course that is currently scheduled to be on February 21-22, 2015 at the Hoag Hospital facilities in Newport Beach, CA. The Clinical Informatics Committee (CIS) chair Toon Prasertsit and his volunteer team have done an excellent job in arranging for this preparation course, which is designed to help the Southern California nurses in our community prepare for the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Nursing Informatics examination. Successful candidates will be entitled to be board certified in Nursing Informatics! The CIS committee will also be partnering with the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA) to host the Chapter’s 7^th Annual Clinical Informatics Summit on May 15, 2015 at the University of California Irvine campus.

Marketing and Communications Committee Chair Dianne Baker and her volunteer group continue to blaze new trails for our chapter with their very informative quarterly newsletter and active engagement in many social media channels. As of the end of November the chapter’s social media presence has grown to 877 Facebook followers and 238 likes, 914 LinkedIn members, 1,051 Twitter followers, and 14 Instagram followers. We also have recorded 8,141 YouTube views with 85 subscribers and 56,864 minutes of videos viewed. Twitter has been the Chapter’s largest social media channel of growth, increasing ten-fold since January 2014.

Our Chapter’s financial and membership portfolios continue to remain strong, thanks to our valued chapter sponsors and members. We will be picking up the pace again in January 2015 with a number of exciting activities for the first quarter of the new year. Mark your calendars for our upcoming 5th Annual Privacy & Security Forum at the Hoag Hospital Conference Center in Newport Beach on January 30, 2015, and the 6^th Annual Healthcare IT Conference at the Center for Healthy Communities in Los Angeles, CA on March 2, 2015. A number of other chapter committees, including the AAC, Advocacy, CIS, and CPHIMS/CAHIMS teams, will also be hosting events in early 2015.

To underscore our Chapter’s accomplishments in 2014 and kick-off 2015, I am pleased to announce that the Southern California Chapter has been awarded the 2014 HIMSS Large Chapter of the Year award! This is a significant honor and recognition of the dedication and great efforts by our team of volunteers to have significant impact on improving our industry. The following article provides details on the award and presentation at the Awards Gala at HIMSS15 in Chicago. We invite you to join us there!

On behalf of the Chapter’s board of directors, committee chairs and members, I would like to wish each of you our best wishes for a happy and successful new year! Thank you for your generous support and I look forward to seeing you at a future program event.

Best Regards,

Jim Brady

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