HIMSS 2013: Talking VNAs & Other IT Trends with Brian Casey of AuntMinnie.com

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Cristine Kao, Global Marketing Manager, Healthcare IT, Carestream

Vendor Neutral Archives (VNAs) was a trendy topic at HIMSS13, and we at Carestream can attest to that popularity. To provide an explanation behind this trend, I sat down with Brian Casey, editor in chief for AuntMinnie.com. When approaching this offering from a radiological perspective, Casey saw VNAs as the most important topic at the trade show. He said it seemed as if everyone in the medical imaging field was either promoting either a new VNA or updates to an existing one.

Being driven by the IT departments, Casey said that data silos are no longer viable in today’s healthcare landscape. It is no longer just the radiologists who need access to those images, so they better be archived in a format that is usable by multiple offices and facilities.

While there are some people who are a bit uneasy of about the security and access surrounding these images, many companies that are providing VNAs are saying that the benefits outweigh the risks. Universal viewers are providing easier access to these images and this access is now available throughout the enterprise, effectively breaking down walls that commonly exist between departments.

Casey and I also discussed the results of the 2013 HIMSS Leadership Survey, which includes details surrounding the most important issues in healthcare IT. Executives identified staffing as the biggest concern for the second year in a row, saying that the ability to hire the right talent served as a barrier to accomplishing their IT goals. While this seems concerning, Casey went on to describe that there is more stability in the healthcare IT workforce that this statistic leads on.

The video below shows our conversation in its entirety.

What topics did you find as being the most important at HIMSS13 this year? Which ones were the most beneficial to your job or organization?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArzmTSOi8T0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]