Meditech: Why We’re Back at HIMSS

Following a three-year absence, Meditech will return to the annual HIMSS Conference in 2012 at the request of its customers and a desire to highlight the opening salvo of a suite of Web-based applications.


Following a three-year absence, Meditech will return to the annual HIMSS Conference in 2012 at the request of its customers and a desire to highlight the opening salvo of a suite of Web-based applications.

The company announced in February 2009 that it would not attend that year's show, saying the current economic climate "mandates we pay particular attention to spending resources wisely this year."

Following the 2008 conference, Meditech conducted an evaluation of the value of continuing to attend and exhibit. Following evaluations during the subsequent two years, the company still was in the camp of not going back, says Paul Berthiaume, manager of corporate communications.

Now, customers have made it clear that they want the company at HIMSS, and Meditech wants to use the 2012 show to rebrand itself as an electronic health records company. It will tout the 200-plus client sites that now are EHR meaningful users, and will demonstrate its Web-based ambulatory EHR, expected to be released in 2012, that will be the first component of the new enterprise system, Berthiaume says.

Other components of the integrated system, comprising inpatient, ambulatory, home health and post-acute care applications for financial, administrative and clinical operations, will follow the ambulatory EHR component. Meditech is rebranding itself as an EHR vendor because it is developing systems that will support longitudinal care and new care models.

Meditech is bringing a new booth to HIMSS 2012. Details on the size of the exhibit have not yet been finalized.