Once again, as has become custom, I sat down with HIMSS CEO Steve Lieber at the organization's Chicago headquarters the week before the annual HIMSS conference to discuss the conference as well as important trends and issues in the health IT industry. I did the interview Monday.

Here it is late Friday and I'm finally getting around to posting the interview, but it's still in plenty of time for you to listen before you get on your flight to New Orleans for HIMSS13, which starts Monday but which really gets going with pre-conference activities on Sunday. At the very least, you have time to download the podcast and listen on the plane or even in the car on the way to the airport. As a bonus, the audio quality is better than usual.

Podcast details: Interview with HIMSS CEO Steve Lieber about HIMSS13 and the state of health IT. Recorded Feb. 25, 2013, at HIMSS HQ in Chicago. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 46.0 MB. Running time: 50:17.

1:00        Industry growth and industry consolidation
2:50        mHIMSS
3:45        Why Dr. Eric Topol is keynoting
6:00        New Orleans as a HIMSS venue
6:50        Changes at HIMSS13, including integration of HIT X.0 into the main conference
8:55        Focus on the patient experience
9:35        Global Health Forum and other "conferences within a conference"
13:00     Criticisms of meaningful use, EHRs and health IT in general
17:00     Progress in the last five years
20:45     Healthcare reform, including payment reform
22:30     Why private payers haven't demanded EHR usage since meaningful use came along
23:50     Payers and data
26:28     Potential for delay of 2015 penalties for not meeting meaningful use
29:15     Benefits of EHRs
30:40     Progress on interoperability between EHRs and medical devices
32:52     Efficiency gains from health IT
35:27     Home-based monitoring in the framework of accountable care
36:55     Consumerism in healthcare
39:40     Accelerating pace of change
41:10     Entrepreneurs, free markets and the economics of healthcare
43:25     Informed, empowered patients and consumer outreach
46:30     Fundamental change in care delivery

Did you happen to catch my story in MobiHealthNews on Thursday about Carrie Handley, the IT consultant-turned-cancer patient? She got frustrated with first a misdiagnosis and then the hassle of lugging around a binder full of paper records that she had to go to multiple sites to collect to assure continuity of care during her treatment and surgeries. So Handley digitized all her records.

Initially, she transported the information on a USB drive, but that got lost in a doctor's lab coat. Then, her son brought over an iPad. The tablet provided the right balance of portability and shareability. In this interview, Handley, a resident of Waterloo, Ontario (you know, the home of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion), describes the process and shares her thoughts in general on mobility in healthcare.

We wouldn't have connected if she hadn't read my tribute to my dad last month. After reading Handley's story in the e-mail she sent me, I knew we had to do this podcast to help spread the idea that communication can help foster the kind of patient-centric care that eluded my dad, that initially eluded her and that probably eludes millions of people every year.

This Sunday is Father's Day. I miss my dad terribly. But I take comfort in knowing that I'm doing a small part to raise awareness of multiple system atrophy (MSA) -- the rare neurodegenerative disease that killed him -- and perhaps advancing the cause of patient safety ever so slightly.

Podcast details: Interview with health IT consultant and cancer survivor Carrie Handley about mobility in healthcare. MP3, mono, 128 kbps, 26.7 MB. Running time 29:13.

I'm about to head to the airport for my flight to Las Vegas and HIMSS12. As has become customary before each year's HIMSS conference, I sat down with H. Stephen Lieber, CEO of HIMSS, this past week to discuss the state of health IT and what to expect at the big event.

The timing of this interview was interesting. We spoke Wednesday morning at the new HIMSS office in downtown Chicago, one day after CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told a gathering of American Medical Association leaders that federal officials were re-examining the Oct. 1, 2013, deadline for adopting ICD-10 coding, and one day before HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made it official that there would be a delay.

Also one day after this interview, HIMSS announced that it has taken over the mHealth Summit from the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health. While Lieber talked extensively about mobile healthcare, he gave no hint that this news was coming.

Meanwhile, the whole health IT universe had been expecting HHS to release its proposed rules for Stage 2 of "meaningful use" of electronic health records this past week. That didn't happen. Monday is a federal holiday, so I don't think we will hear anything until at least Tuesday, which, coincidentally, happens to be the first day of the HIMSS conference. As if we don't have enough to keep us occupied in the next few days.

The recording is a little fuzzy. I'm not really sure what created the echo and the background noise, since we were in a dedicated interview room, one of the nice features at the new HIMSS digs. Radio interference perhaps? That happened to me a couple years ago in the old HIMSS office on East Ohio Street. Just pretend you're listening on AM radio or something.

Podcast details: Interview with HIMSS CEO Steve Lieber, February 15, 2012. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 31.9 MB, running time 34:51.

1:00 Logistics of HIMSS12 in Las Vegas after the venue change
2:00 Why the Venetian-Palazzo-Sands might work better than the Las Vegas Convention Center
2:55 Why the conference starts on Tuesday this year
3:25 Massive scale of the conference
5:25 Return of Cerner and Meditech and some first-time exhibitors
7:45 mHIMSS and HIT X.0
10:15 Twitter co-founder Biz Stone keynoting and the state of social media in healthcare
12:00 Accountable care and realignment of incentives
14:15 What might be in proposed rule for Stage 2 of meaningful use
17:20 Preview of HIMSS survey of hospital readiness for meaningful use
20:30 ICD-10 readiness
25:00 Greater public awareness of health IT but continuing difficulties in communicating the finer points of healthcare reform
27:50 Mobile healthcare
31:25 The growing importance of clinical analytics

Did you happen to catch my InformationWeek Healthcare story about how UPMC believes it has the roadmap in place to achieve true accountable care? Well, here's the rest of the story.

Last week, Nuance Communications invited me to Pittsburgh for a tour of the UPMC Center for Connected Medicine, an impressive, high-tech showcase on the 60th floor of the U.S. Steel Tower. There, I interviewed, among others, Rasu Shrestha, M.D., UPMC's vice president for medical information technology, medical director of interoperability & imaging informatics and division chief of radiology informatics. Here is that interview.

Podcast details: Interview with Rasu Shrestha, M.D., UPMC vice president for medical information technology, Feb. 7, 2012, at UPMC's Center for Connected Medicine. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 15.6 MB, running time 17:08.

1:10 "Clinical language understanding" and "bringing data to life"
3:05 Analytics beyond patient care
3:55 Computer-assisted coding
6:35 Business intelligence in the context of ACOs
7:45 UPMC striving to be an ACO
8:35 Aggregating data from payer and provider sides of the organization
10:30 Keeping medication lists up to date
11:45 Health information exchange among multiple vendor systems
13:00 What to watch for in the near future from UPMC
14:10 Overcoming cultural barriers to change

Patricia Mechael is the newly installed executive director of the mHealth Alliance, a joint effort of the United Nations Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation. The mHealth Alliance this week is joining with the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health to put on the third annual mHealth Summit in National Harbor, Md.

I first met Patty in 2008, at the mobile health week of the Rockefeller Foundation's Making the eHealth Connection conferences in bucolic Bellagio, Italy, when she was m-health advisor to the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, a post she continues to hold. I was impressed by her international credentials in applying mobility to public health.

She was chosen in September to lead the mHealth Alliance, and joined just a few weeks ago. I interviewed her by phone last week in anticipation of the mHealth Summit. This is the result. (I'll have a companion piece in MobiHealthNews in the next day or two.)

Podcast details: Interview with Patricia Mechael, executive director of mHealth Alliance. Recorded Dec. 1, 2011. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 5.1 MB. Running time 11:05
0:40 Roots in Bellagio meetings
1:30 mHealth Summit
2:05 Vision for mHealth Alliance and mHealth Summit
3:50 Legacy of Bellagio
4:45 Global reach of mobile phones
6:45 Multiple communication channels to account for literacy differences
7:25 Smartphones in global health
8:20 Separating hype from reality in low-resource environments

Did you miss Eric Dishman's keynote address Tuesday at the Medical Group Management Association's annual conference in Las Vegas? That's OK, because I secured a few minutes with Dishman, director of health innovation and policy at Intel, immediately after his talk, and the results are right here.

This podcast, recorded in the somewhat noisy press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center, is a companion piece of sorts to my coverage in MobiHealthNews on Thursday, so I hope you have a chance to check out both.

Podcast details: Intel's Eric Dishman on connected care management, recorded Oct. 26, 2011, at MGMA annual conference in Las Vegas. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 5.2 MB. Running time 11:08.

0:30 Virtual care coordination in nontraditional settings
1:05 Overlap/collaboration with Care Innovations joint venture
2:10 Prototype device for monitoring symptoms of Parkinson's patients
4:00 Home monitoring of "classic" chronic diseases
4:55 Tracking behavioral changes for prevention and early detection
6:05 Realizing the potential of mobile health
6:55 Care coordination and health reform
8:30 ACOs and payment for quality
9:35 Intel's future providing "strategic blueprints" for healthcare
10:20 How to share ideas with him

In part two of my series from month's IBM Exchange 2011, my guest is IBM Distinguished Engineer Scott Schumacher. In this lively podcast, Schumacher discusses Watson, disease management and the concept of the "clinical hub," which envisions bringing together clinical decision support and case management.

As with my previous podcast with IBM's Lorraine Fernandes, I set my mic too low. I boosted the level during editing, but that introduced more background noise than I'd like. Schumacher mostly comes through nice and clear, though.

Podcast details: Interview with IBM Distinguished Engineer Scott Schumacher, recorded Sept. 14, 2011, in Chicago. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 13.2 MB. Running time 14:25.

0:30 What the IBM Exchange is
1:38 The "clinical hub"
2:30 Population analytics and individual patient analysis
4:20 Applying Watson intelligence and other medical knowledge
5:40 Target customers for clinical hub
7:10 Technical challenges
8:15 Potential for the technology
9:00 Video/image mining
10:00 Plans for testing and deployment
11:35 Mining of clinical notes and patient history
12:30 Incorporation of genomics and predictive treatment plans

From the Department of Procrastination comes part one of a two-part podcast series from last month's IBM Exchange 2011, an event the vendor put on to display its wares in health information exchange. The two-day conference took place in Chicago, home of the former Initiate Systems, which IBM acquired in early 2010. Here, I talk with Lorraine Fernandes, global healthcare ambassador for IBM (yes, that's really her title), about how HIE enables healthcare reform and improved public and population health. (In part two, which I'll post later this week, I discuss Watson with IBM's Scott Schumacher.)

As usual, I had a minor technical glitch. Since it was a local event, I schlepped my bag downtown and set up a mixing board with two mics. I didn't notice until the very end that I had my mic set way too low. I tried to fix that during editing, but raising the level just introduces more background noise. Ah, at least Lorraine's words are clear.

Podcast details: Interview with IBM Global Healthcare Ambassador Lorraine Fernandes, recorded Sept. 14, 2011, in Chicago. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 22.0 MB. Running time 23:50.

1:00 Global problem of public health
1:45 Renewed focus on population health
3:00 Early successes and a search for better models
4:00 Private HIE in competitive U.S. markets
5:00 "Lowest common denominator" of EHR
6:30 Barriers to HIE
7:00 Building trust with consumers
11:30 Engaging people in the healthcare system
12:30 HIE for care coordination
13:30 Planning and executing ACO plans
15:15 Experiments in healthcare reform
16:00 Explaining healthcare innovations to the general public
18:05 Home monitoring for preventing hospital readmissions
19:45 IBM analytics, including Watson
21:10 Addressing continued physician resistance
22:30 Healthcare and American competitiveness

Back in June, I covered the Wisconsin Technology Network's Digital Healthcare Conference in Madison. That conference featured a panel with Vi Shaffer, research vice president and industry services director for healthcare providers at Gartner, Judy Murphy, vice president of information services at Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, and Epic Systems CEO Judy Faulkner, based in nearby Verona, Wis.

The panel discussed the question, "Is meaningful use a floor or a ceiling?" as I reported for WTN News. The conference also featured several sessions on how business intelligence and health information exchange can support Accountable Care Organizations.

A month later, I saw Shaffer again at AMDIS Physician-Computer Connection meeting in Ojai, Calif. There, she presented preliminary data from Gartner's annual survey of CMIOs. After the conference ended, I got a chance to sit down with Shaffer for this podcast. Since the fog and clouds finally lifted on the final day, we decided to record this outdoors at the beautiful Ojai Valley Inn, which is why you will hear some birds and other (human) creatures in the background. We don't care, it was too nice to sit indoors.

We mostly discussed how HIE can support ACOs, but we also touched on meaningful use and health reform in this lively interview. Enjoy.

Podcast details: Interview with Vi Shaffer, research vice president and industry services director for healthcare providers at Gartner. Recorded July 15, 2011, in Ojai, Calif. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 7.9 MB. Running time 17:14.

1:35 ACO as a business model and a fundamental change in the needs of patients (chronic disease)
3:00 Interoperability for care coordination 3:50 Will ACO model be better than disease management as it exists today?
4:50 Nature of proposed rules
7:30 Importance of innovation because "meeting the metrics is average."
9:05 Is meaningful use a floor or a ceiling? Is an ACO a floor or a ceiling?
10:46 Ambulatory services growing faster than hospital services
12:38 "Oligopolies" in healthcare building interoperability and continuums of care
14:40 How far can you go with interoperability in this changing healthcare climate?
15:19 Targeted panel management rather than population health

Why are physicians still resisting EMRs? Maybe it's because systems aren't easy to use and lack interoperability. That's the hypothesis of Rick Kneipper, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Anthelio Healthcare Solutions, a Dallas-based business process services firm that until February was known as PHNS.

In my latest podcast, Kneipper joins me to discuss the shortcomings of current EMRs and current EMR policy, and offers his remedies for the problems. Give it a listen, then share your thoughts, too.

Podcast details: Interview with Rick Kneipper, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Anthelio. MP3, mono, 64 mbps, 12.7 MB. Running time 27:50

1:05 Why he thinks current EHRs aren’t meeting their promise of improving safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare
2:00 Money for meaningful use is starting to flow
2:30 Lack of interoperability in lower levels of in HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model
3:35 Similar problems in meaningful use standards
4:15 No “silver bullet”
5:15 Per PCAST report, many EMRs create electronic versions of patient charts
6:25 Systems for creating billing documentation, not for improving care
7:05 Anthelio’s approach on workflow
7:55 Why aren’t we reengineering workflows?
9:10 Process doesn’t end when EMR goes “live”
10:05 Ultimate objective of meaningful use
10:43 Some physicians are just doing it for the money
12:15 Limitations of certification
12:45 Waiting on Stage 2 requirements
14:20 Caveat emptor and the rush to book revenue
15:33 Interoperability missing from Stage 1
16:00 Physician engagement in EMR selection
18:55 Usefulness of EMR data
20:45 Clinical decision support in MU
23:00 Patient safety compared to aviation safety
25:00 Public apathy toward patient safety
26:20 Advice to vendor community