Bahrain – 2nd June 2009: The inaugural healthcare information technology and management conference, organized by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Middle East, concluded this successful, educational event with representatives from the region’s health ministries and healthcare providers acknowledging the need to improve and increase technology spending for better healthcare delivery.

“The HIMSS MiddleEast09 Healthcare & IT Management Excellence conference brought together 337 attendees from 26 countries in this first event in the Gulf region," said H. Stephen Lieber, CAE, HIMSS President/CEO. "Attendees and exhibitors alike have indicated that hallmark of the conference was the strong programming, focused healthcare IT education, and targeted exhibits that provided valuable connections to EMR product solutions they expected and wanted," said Mr. Lieber.

The three-day conference began with a symposium on how IT links insurance programs with healthcare organizations, highlighting issues such as achieving integration between provider and client, as well as improving the claims processing procedure with the integration of technology.

Following this session, a keynote presentation addressed a number of critical healthcare IT issues, including interoperability, healthcare IT standards, healthcare IT project management, electronic medical records, data repositories, clinical information systems, business information systems, and patient safety, among others.

Speakers at the conference included key decision makers in the healthcare IT sector. As a representative of Bahrain’s Minister of Health, Dr. Fawzi Abdulla Amin, Assistant Undersecretary for Training and Planning, welcomed the conference delegates.

Dr. Yasir Khan, Clinical Advisor for the Qatar’s National Programme for e-Health whose expertise includes exploring the potential of virtual reality for rehabilitation of neuro-psychological disorders, was one of the keynote speakers.

Dr. Saadi Taher, Executive Director of the National Guard Health Affairs, KSA, presented a keynote session outlining the health issues in the Gulf region and how technology can help improve health trends. He also highlighted several specific technology implementations in the National Guard health delivery system and identified how the use of those applications is improving patient outcomes.

On the penultimate day of the conference, Jay Srini, Chief Innovation Officer at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Health Plan, and Edgar Mounib, Global Healthcare Executive for IBM, put forward insightful ideas on healthcare IT standards and practices as well as future trends in the field.

“Underscoring the effective and timely deployment of technology in healthcare, key decision makers and leaders in the healthcare sector agreed to step up investment and focus on upgrading IT standards relative to the provision and delivery of healthcare services. The healthcare sector in the region is one of the fastest growing worldwide, and we need to keep pace with the advances in technology that are relevant to the healthcare industry,” said Majid Al-Tuwaijri, Executive Director, College of Public Health and Health Informatics King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia

As the healthcare industry’s leading membership organization advocating the optimal use of healthcare IT and management systems for the betterment of healthcare, HIMSS also organized education sessions for conference attendees that discussed various tracks offered in Clinical IT, Healthcare/HIT Management and IT Applications.

The next HIMSS Middle East conference is confirmed for 15-17 November 2009 in Muscat, Oman. The HIMSS09 Middle East Health IT Leadership Summit will form a community of senior healthcare executives from around the region to share best-known methods and the procurement and implementation of health information technology.

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About HIMSS: Visit http://himssme.org/summit/ for more information.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the healthcare industry’s membership organisation exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., Brussels, Singapore, and other locations across the United States and the globe, HIMSS represents more than 20,000 individual members and over 350 corporate members that collectively represent organisations employing millions of people. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practises through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to ensuring quality patient care. Visit www.himss.org for more information.

The HIMSS MiddleEast09 Partner Sponsors are:
ATC
Indra
iSoft
Kronos
Lawson E3
Siemens

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