My Bets for HIMSS 2025 Las Vegas
The HIMSS conference is in Las Vegas in 2025, where leaders across the healthcare industry will share best practices around navigating the adoption of new technologies in a heavily regulated industry while advancing the quintuple aims of healthcare. The innovation showcased at HIMSS will no doubt include a couple of surprises, but true to location this year, I'm placing some bets on what will emerge (or remain) as major themes when the conference wraps up.
Bet#1 Cybersecurity
Coming off 2024, which saw the healthcare industry disrupted by major breaches, including the Change Healthcare breach that impacted health systems all over, it's no surprise that 78 percent of executives indicated that enhancing cybersecurity is a priority this year. Preventing cybercriminals from gaining access to patient data will remain critical, but with full recovery from cyber events taking weeks to months, I bet there will be a heightened focus this year on the ability to recover business-critical applications quickly, limiting negative impacts on patient care delivery.
Bet#2 Artificial intelligence
You don't need to count cards to know plenty of AI stories around success (and shared growing pains) will be dealt with. A recent WWT AI roundtable consisting of health system executives across IT, Security and Transformation revealed that data readiness and scalability of AI solutions are a work in progress as many are testing the waters with limited pilots in the cloud. As health systems take this pivotal step on their journey to leverage years of data, I bet that data quality, visibility, preparation and readiness for AI will be discussed in length. While best practices around data governance and readiness are being shared, I'll also bet that the health systems able to overcome this obstacle will enjoy a flywheel effect in their AI journey and more speaking engagements at HIMSS 2026.
Bet #3 Automation
With the rapid advancements in robotic surgery, genomics and personalized medicine, it's hard not to get excited about what's coming down the road. While those aspirations have never been closer, healthcare organizations know there is lower-hanging fruit to be had with huge ROI and impact for their own staff.
According to the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), found that in 2024, the global cybersecurity workforce reached 5.5 million (up 0.1 percent YoY) while the global cyber-talent gap grew to 4.8 million (up 19 percent YoY). On the clinical side, McKinsey predicts by year's end, the U.S. will be short 64,000 physicians alone, not to mention the roughly 450,000 nurses needed to deliver care.
Talent shortages are impacting healthcare organizations inside and outside of the hospital room. Automation, where possible, isn't really a bet, but for cybersecurity professionals or clinicians, there is increasing complexity from the rapidly growing landscape of third-party point solutions. Chores done for you become a task when you need to jump from system to system to verify the chore was completed, so I will bet that the vendors who are able to provide the most automation from a single consolidated platform, clinical or otherwise, will be the busiest in the next few months after HIMSS.
HIMSS is awesome because we come together as an industry to showcase innovative technologies, but more importantly, the processes and people required to make the technology work. Without the right people, processes and technology in place, technology can quickly become an obstacle (or entry point) instead of an enabler.
Enjoy the conference and make sure you link up with one of our Chief Healthcare Advisors!