Message from the President

Dear Members,

In normal times, I have the honor of writing a year-end letter where I boast of chapter happenings like member growth, fundraising accomplishments, and community impact. However, times are anything but normal and it does not feel appropriate. In short, please know that membership is stable, and our chapter is financially sound.

Instead, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our friends and colleagues whose lives have been forever altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. To those of you who have lost someone, please know my heart is with you. I’d also like to recognize our clinicians, who tirelessly and selflessly dedicate themselves to caring for others during these trying times. Thank you for all that you do. Lastly, I’d like to thank my fellow board and committee members. I am humbled to work alongside such a passionate team who graciously volunteer their time and expertise to advance healthcare IT in the State of Washington.

Thank you all and have a safe holiday season,

Dylan Strecker

HIMSS Washington President

Member Spotlight

Dr. Zafar Chaudry, Sr. VP, Chief Information Officer, Seattle's Children's Hospital, A Fearless Leader

By Artina Mitchell, Communications Chair

Welcome to the end of 2020 HIMSS WA! In this month’s member spotlight edition, I would like to introduce to you Dr. Zafar Chaudry, Sr. VP and Chief Information Officer of Seattle's Children's Hospital. If asked, those who know and have worked with Zafar may tell you that he is considered to be a HIT thought leader, an advocate of community involvement and someone who has a knack for helping people expand their thoughts beyond the obvious while keeping them from getting lost in the idea of “just IT”.

It was in March of 2018 when we reached out to Zafar and asked him if he would be willing to share his perspective and time as an advisor for our Chapter. We are happy to report he agreed and since then has been a very important member and contributor to the format and content for our events. We are thankful for his thought-provoking ideas, valuable feedback, and true desire to help others in this field. As a result, his contribution to the development and planning for our Emerging Leaders events, participation as an event panelist, connection to technology ideas for Summit events and membership on the CXO Committee have been instrumental to our chapter's ability to serve this community.

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Call for Volunteers

Get Involved and Join a WA HIMSS Committee

Did you know that the HIMSS Washington Chapter has a variety of committees that help shape our programming and education sessions? These volunteer committees are a great way to network with other professionals and help shape our events. The typical committee member volunteers about 2-4 hours a month either remotely or in person. Current committees include Clinical Informatics, Programs, Sponsorship, Communications and Advocacy. Please reach out to David Porter at wa.advocacy@himsschapter.org to sign up.

It’s a great way to network, learn and promote what your organization has achieved which helps build employee morale. We have much more work to do to keep our employees engaged and networked. We need more collaboration.  ~Dr. Zafar Chaudry

Event Recaps

The Stepping Stones to Clinical Informatics: A Three-Part Series

By James Jones, CIC Communication Chair

Stepping Stones to Clinical Informatics was a continuation from the “Bridge to Informatics” series from 2019. It consisted of a three-part series of presentations and panels related to clinical informatics education, job roles, and certifications. It also included networking opportunities while adding educational topics such as workflow, telehealth, digital health, and clinical decision support.

The first series focused on informatics programs which included an information session on the differences between clinical informatics and nursing informatics and the different programs available. The second series was a clinical informatics 101; understanding specialty areas at various organizations. The objective was to understand the various job roles within organizations such as trainers, analysts, operations, certified Epic trainers, and health tech start-ups within the clinical informatics world. A panelist of informaticists portrayed ‘a day in the life’ that demonstrated different job roles within organizations. Lastly, the third and final series focused on providing clinical informatics certifications and resources to those interested including the CPHIMS and CAHIMS certifications.

Stones was a great opportunity to open up discussions about clinical informatics and the strides that have been made in a brief amount of time. However, this series shed light on the value of the discipline and what it has to offer moving forward. The field of informatics provides numerous roles for individuals to pursue and this was a platform that provided a network of resources and information for the attendees. Although everyone’s path is different, if the desire and passion are there, there will be a place and opportunity for everyone, and this series exemplified that.

Virtual Summit

By Dwayne Neufeld, President-Elect & Programs Chair

If you were one of the 23 volunteers that participated as a speaker, panelist or moderator I want to thank you for making the 2020 Virtual Summit a success! Our local speakers and panelists came from six of the largest provider organizations in the state including Confluence Health, Overlake Hospital Medical Center, PeaceHealth, Providence, Seattle Children’s and Swedish. In addition to great local participation, we had two nationally recognized speakers talking on Healthcare IT Policy with Paul Keckley of The Keckley Report and Tom Leary, Sr VP of Government Relations for HIMSS. Six sessions over two weeks with 350 registered attendees - and all this great content was provided free of charge!

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Vendor Spotlight

Safeguard Patient Info from Visual Hacking

A large health system in the Ohio region recently transitioned their monitor standards to ViewSonic. The decision to move their monitor business to ViewSonic came in the middle of the pandemic amidst supply chain constraints from their prior standard and a desire to simplify their deployment process. ViewSonic’s offerings tested well with the IT group and proved easier to deploy than their prior standard.

The previous monitor manufacturer made a small change to the stand portion of the monitor that didn’t allow for their MFF PC to be mounted behind the screen without drilling holes into the stand or using a wall mount. ViewSonic’s VG2448 monitor and the universal client mounting kit allowed them to mount the PC on the back of the monitor for a cleaner install that is easy to repurpose to another location within the facility when needed.

They were also spending excessive amounts of time and money replacing plastic privacy filters for departments that handle sensitive patient data. The filters would fall off the monitor or be removed by an end user and damaged or discarded requiring repeat purchases to ensure compliance. With the option of a monitor with an always on built in privacy filter eliminated the need for replacement orders while maintaining patient privacy and compliance.

As the majority of their non-patient facing workforce continues to work from home there has been an increase in demand for webcam purchases. Continued global supply chain constraints on stand alone webcams are delaying the fulfilment of orders. The upcoming release of a 24in monitor with an integrated webcam is expected to become part of their standard deployment for a clean clutter free workstation.

Interested in learning more about how to ViewSonic can match your organization with a compliant and clutter free solution? We’d love to help! Please reach out to Jess Randall : jess.randall@viewsonic.com NW Regional Business Manager or connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessrandall1/

Season’s Greetings from the HIMSS WA Sponsorship Chair

As 2020 comes to a close, we can all look back on a year of pandemic-mania. Working from home, connecting with family via Zoom, online fitness classes, wishing that Netflix series had a few more episodes, and so much more of an appreciation of what we had, and didn’t have in our lives.

2021 is sure to bring about another new era in healthcare, especially technology. It is an exciting time for our members to get to know all the new technologies that have been developed or are percolating while we all sheltered in place. This is an opportunistic moment for HIMSS Sponsorship to understand what nurtures our sponsors, educates are members, and drives prospective clients in your direction. I will, personally, be reaching out to all of you that have supported HIMSS in the past to really understand what works and what you would like to see differently. For our new sponsors, we will be looking to you to share your latest and greatest with HIMSS members through educational and social programs, both virtually as well as when doors open and we can all safely spill into the streets.

We are so grateful to our past and current sponsors for providing their support and making HIMSS Programs possible. And to our future sponsors, we are so very excited to expand our current offerings to meet your organizations needs and share your expertise, knowledge, and offerings to HIMSS members.

Happy Holidays to All! In health,

Mauraan C. Schultz

Upcoming Events

Incentivizing Health: A Hackathon to Build Solutions for Better Health Outcome - January 20-21, 2021

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