President's Message

Dear Maryland Chapter of HIMSS Members, Colleagues and Friends,

As we watch the leaves turn and fall to the ground, we are still teased by the passing of summer – not wanting to let go, tricking us with days with temps in the 70s and plenty of sunshine. As we bask in the warmth of our beautiful fall days, we know that winter is just around the corner, pulling us closer to the coldest months of the year.

We typically become less social as winter approaches, after all, it can be harder to get around and more troublesome to get bundled up to travel to those destinations - but that is where the Maryland Chapter of HIMSS can help!

What better to help you break your cabin fever that is looming on your horizon than to get out and attend one of our upcoming events! We offer a variety of ways to get you out of the house or office, and start living again! After all, your brain needs to be fed too, and what better way to sustain it than to provide it the social stimulation and learning opportunities that it needs to make it through our upcoming winter!

Speaking of opportunities, for those that missed them, we had a packed house at our Fall Networking event in September, an evening Cocktail Reception in October, and our first Educational Event of the season in November. Many of our members attended the National HIMSS events located just in our backdoor in DC and Virginia with the Policy Summit in October and the National HIMSS Connected Health Summit in November.  

On the horizon, we have additional Cocktail Receptions planned, another Educational Event in January, and our Healthcare HIT Day in Annapolis in February.

There is always an opportunity to get involved, get out of your house, get out of your comfort zone, and interact with others while you learn, network, and grow.

I hope to see you out at one of our upcoming events.

Bob Hooper
President, Maryland Chapter of HIMSS

Advocacy Committee

See you in the Winter! 

Communications Committee

The Communications Committee has had a busy Fall supporting the other committees that bring you great programs and activities. We appreciate the feedback we receive from MDHIMSS members via surveys and other avenues. Please continue to drop us a line at md.info@himsschapter.org to let us know what we are doing well and how we can better serve you. Thank you to those of you that signed up at the November 19 event to work on the Communications team! We look foward to cross-training and doing more with social media. There are still some opportunities available - We want to hear from you if you have an interest in contributing in the areas of web site authoring, graphic design, Constant Contact, photography, videography, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Looking foward to a great Winter!

Mark Doore
Communications Committee Chair

Community Outreach Committee

This season Community Outreach is working with the Program Planning committee to broaden participation in our educational, social, advocacy and golf tournament by our over 1700 members.   If you are a vendor of a HIT product or service, a sponsorship provides a low cost venue to meet and great potential clients. Click on the  Sponsorship Brochure for full details.

Walter Bergman
Community Outreach and Golf Tournament Chair

CXO Outreach Committee

See you in the Winter!

Membership Committee

Our September Networking Event added 16 new member to the Maryland Chapter.   On behalf of the board, I want to welcome them, and we are looking forward to seeing and meeting everyone at our future events.   Some of those companies include KPMG, Avhana Health, PA & Associates Healthcare, Inovalon, CRISP, Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, NetCraftsmen, Livanta LLC, Man & Machine, Utley Solutions, Doctors Community Hospital, and Informatica.

Non-Members can join the Maryland chapter by attending an event as a non-member and by completing and retuning the application within 5 days after an event. All non-member registration fees include a one-year chapter membership if the completed application is return in this time period.

For our Corporate Members / Organization Affiliates keep an eye out for our team when we come to your office for a Meet and Greet in the upcoming months.  

If you are interested in joining this committee, please contact the Brian Zernhelt Membership Committee Chair at bzernhelt@softwareconsortium.com or 410-740-1910 x104

Program Planning Committee

Health IT Innovation in Maryland: The Next Frontier

By Kathryn A. Whitmore, Maryland HIMSS Board Member and Program Planning Chair

Our Fall Educational event drew well over one hundred participants to the Ten Oaks Ballroom in Clarksville on November 19^th to learn about and discuss Health IT innovation underway in Maryland as well as network with speakers and participants over breakfast and lunch.

Johns Hopkins Neurologists, Mackenzie C. Cervenka, M.D. and Nathan Earl Crone, M.D., wowed the group as they introduced the challenges of epilepsy and their journey to develop the Epiwatch™ application. This wearable device changes the way seizures are tracked and managed, caregivers are alerted, and triggers are noted. This wearable application and research study is poised to discover more about why and when seizures occur and could unlock many mysteries of epilepsy as well as significantly improve quality of life for children and adults experiencing seizures.

Participants enjoyed a panel discussion on the new and evolving infrastructure being developed by CRISP to support statewide care coordination. Innovative examples from Anne Arundel Medical Center were explored, such as care alerts for clinicians. The CRISP team explained how care alerts are implemented as well as explaining other new technology and providing an overview of new reporting and analytics available. Panel members included:

• Debra Roper, Director Ambulatory Information Services, Anne Arundel Medical Center
• David Horrocks, President & CEO, CRISP
• Ross Martin, M.D., Program Director, Integrated Care Network, CRISP
• Craig Behm, Director of Reporting & Analytics, CRISP
• Ryan Bramble, Director of Integration, CRISP

The program closed with a thought provoking presentation on Using Healthcare Data to Drive Public Health Action from Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D., Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Sharfstein used many actionable examples drawn from past experience serving as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore, and Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration appointed by President Obama.

Speaker presentations for Past Events are posted under Education & Events on our website http://md.himsschapter.org.

We thank you for your continued interest in Health IT and the Maryland Chapter of HIMSS. If you would like to volunteer your time to help our Program Planning team, please contact us:

Kathryn Whitmore, Chair (KathrynWhitmore@STSConsultingGroup.com) at 443-742-4643 or

David Smith, Vice-Chair (david.smith@capitaldigestivecare.com) at 240-485-5206

Professional Development Committee

The Professional Development Committee has been reviewing applications for our annual scholarship(s).  We plan to acknowledge our recipients during  our September 10^th Networking Event.  Recipients are selected based on a combination of GPA, course of study and volunteer/professional development activities.  Students will receive $2,500.