Today in health, it hymns is coming up and I asked the question, hymns. Yes or no. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health, a set of Charleston events dedicated to transform healthcare. One connection. At a time. We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Short tests, artist site, enterprise health. Parlance Panda health certified health, notable and service.

Now check them out at this week. health.com/today. Let's see, what are we going to talk about? Catherine's campaign for cures. If you are going to hymns, please find captain, get your picture taken. Grab your friends. Every smiling face in that picture is going to get a dollar as you heard earlier, because I think the pre. Thing to the today show now talks about that.

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Just use it as a foundation for discussion, help them to understand how you think and that's why you were mentoring them. They want to know how you think and how you process things. They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. Here's the thing I've been so I went to the Vive. I'm going to hymns.

I fend to some of these other conferences over the years, I've been to Scottsdale Institute. I've been to Becker's. I've been to some of the smaller things that go on as well. I'd been, I never been to a Gartner conference. Ah, I shall have to remedy that someday, but anyway here's the here's the million dollar question.

Are you going to hymns? And I've been asking it a lot lately. I'm getting a lot of, no answers from health system leaders. Some of that is due to what is going on today in healthcare, which is the change healthcare. I don't know, breach problem. Outage, whatever you want to call it. I know a bunch of health system leaders are planning, contingencies, putting relay health and putting other things in.

But we are working through. A fairly complex crisis at this point. And so some people aren't coming for that reason. Some people aren't coming because they've made the decision. Hey, I can't go to every conference that's out there. So I'm going to go to one or the other, or I'm going to go to a different conference. And so I wanted to talk about how I think about this.

Maybe this will help you. Maybe it won't love to hear your thoughts on it. This is one case where you're a consumer. And for the most part, you're a consumer and I know this contradicts some of the stuff I've said in other podcasts. I have a tendency to speak out of both sides of my mouth on. On things, because it depends what lens you have.

It's depends how you're looking at things. But you as a CIO or a healthcare leader, you're busy. Period. End of discussion. You cannot go to everything you're invited to, or you're not going to have a family life or your you're not going to have a team, a solid team at your health system. This is not about building your career.

It is about doing what's in the best interest of your organization, your consumer, in this case. And so when I look at these conferences they break down into different types of conferences. There are the carnivals. And some are more carnival than others. Some are becoming more carnival than they used to be. Vive is a carnival.

Hymns is a carnival. Becker's is becoming more of a carnival, but they limit it because they limit the. People who can be there, who are not a part of a house system. But still they're trying to become more of a carnival they're being driven. I think by financial returns and that's, by the way, That's the net of it.

So Vive. Is a part of health. Health has private equity back thereafter returns. HIMS has proven they are after returns. I think they actually sold the U S a events business. They are after returned to whoever bought it. It's definitely after returns because they spent money for it. Now they have to get that return. Becker's is partially private equity backed and anytime you're private equity backed, I don't care if it's 5% or a hundred percent. There's a returns mentality associated with it.

And so you're going to take on more sponsors. You're going to do more things. To those things. Those are the carnivals. There's value in the carnivals, by the way. And the value I find in the carnivals is. It is a great way to see a bunch of vendors very quickly. And now I, for me, this is how I used it.

You might use a completely different, but this is how I used it. So there are. The one of the most effective things at the Vive conference. Was the hosted buyer meetings. So 15 minutes with various buyers, it pays for your tickets. So you don't have to pay for your ticket and you get 15 minutes with these various partners. Some people like it, some people don't like it. I think it's fairly effective. Because I didn't have problem shutting people down.

If they were going to hound me, I could shut them down very quickly. If they were gonna put me into their top of funnel and I was going to start getting bombarded with emails, I could shut that down very quickly. So I wasn't worried too much about people getting my badge and my name and my email address.

Those 15 minutes would be pretty effective for me to identify potential new solutions. That's number one. Number two. I'd like to, I used to go to hymns all the time. Again. There wasn't this amazing proliferation. When I was a CIO, but I would go to hymns all the time. It might my goal at hymns. Was to meet with my various key partners.

So I would go from my EHR provider to my CRM provider, to my ERP provider. To my networking partner, to a VMware whatever category they're in, because they had a ton of different things. But I had hit all those major partners. And one of the reasons I did that was I could in a matter of two to three days, I could meet not only with my sales team, but I could meet with senior executives from those organizations and subject matter experts. So we could lay out. Essentially, where are you going with this product?

How are you thinking? Is there some things that you could include, how can you help me to be successful? And so I could do that over the course of two days. Now, some CEOs will say these people are going to come to me. You know what? It's not going to be nearly as efficient as two days, walking around a conference and getting in front of those key people, senior executives, your sales team, and subject matter experts.

I didn't see a Meditech booth. I didn't see a Cerner booth. I didn't see health catalyst. I didn't see, I, There's just a host. Of organizations that aren't there yet. Not because they wouldn't love to have them. But they have to choose where they're going to go. And to date. Hymns still draws the majority of those. People.

And one of the reasons I think HIMS does is because the Vive conference is very specific towards health it technology. And health tech and innovation and that kind of stuff. Whereas hymns is more broad. You're going to see. A ton more nerd. I think five is trying to get more nurses, more clinical, more, all that stuff.

But HIMS traditionally has a broad following. You're going to see a lot of clinicians at fi to hymns. And whatnot. You're going to see. Because a lot of the health system leaders, it leaders aren't going to be there. I'm finding, you're seeing the second tier of people going. It's Hey, I can't go.

You go. And, tell me what tell me what's going on. And so I'm seeing a lot of chief technology officers and data officers and security officers heading to hymns. There's a fairly good security meeting that happens the day before HIMS starts. And so that's, who's going to that conference. Which gets to the second thing.

Again, I would say that the most, most important part of these get togethers is the interaction with other people who share your role to have conversations, potentially drive partnerships. To learn things from each other and whatnot. I don't find the carnivals to be good for that, to be honest even though chime and five are together, I still don't find there to be enough quality time. With other CEO's to get to a point of of, I don't know of moving the ball down the field. For that, I'm not looking at the carnivals.

I'm looking at things that are less carnival ask. And things like the Scottsdale Institute, obviously the 2 29 project. Health management academy. Th the other there's other venues and other events that are geared and designed to bring health leaders into community, into discussion. That they don't have a carnival.

They don't have a showroom floor or boat show ask feel to them. There. But it's a different purpose, right? Again, I say those things and it sounds like I'm being derogatory. There's value in that I went to Hans because they had the boat show. Because I could go to all these different booths and get what I needed to get to. I would go to a Scottsdale Institute or 2 29 projects meeting because I could sit across from my peers and over the course of two, two and a half days. You could have meaningful discussions on what you're doing around analytics, what you're doing around cybersecurity.

Again, in, in these kinds of settings, you can be more honest, more direct. And have those kinds of conversations. So if I were a CIO in this world today, I would step back and I would have a conference strategy. I know it sounds goofy, which ones would I go to? And what am I trying to get out of it again?

You're a consumer. What's best for you. What's best for the organization that you represent what's best for the team that you represent. In some cases, you're going to send key players to different things. You might send a player to the Gardner conference. You might go to a Vive because you want to be a part of chime and interact with your peers there.

And that works. And you might go to hymns because you want to meet with your vendors. But I would have a strategy around this. You might, you might want to. Again, expand your network. I think one of the most valuable things is expanding your network so that you have people to call on.

When you have questions, when you have comments and concerns I've worked with. As I was coaching healthcare leaders. I pushed very strongly on this idea of building out your network. For me, it has been just just absolutely. Essential in my progress as a CIO. And as an individual.

And you get to run ideas by people. You get people who are down a path farther than you. You get people that you can compare yourself to. You can look at it and say, they're able to do this with fewer resources. They're able to do this. With a better quality metric. How are they able to do that? And you're able to have that conversation if you have that network, if you have that relationship.

And so I find that to be essential. So a conference strategy. What are you after? And quite frankly, you don't have to take a long time on it. You just have to think it through and not let it happen to you. My concern and my warning to you is you can overdo conferences.

If you show up at too many conferences. You will get a reputation as someone who is not serious in your role. And I say that as a warning to you, because there is a FOMO that exists in our industry. If, oh my gosh, look at all these people were at this conference. Look at all those things. Don't even give it a second thought.

It is. The people who go to every conference are not serious in their role. They are more concerned. In my opinion, they're more concerned about advancing their own personal interests and personal career. Than they are. And advancing their health systems objectives. And to me, those people aren't serious people to consider.

That's that's my 2 cents. Put your strategy together. Get focused, figure out when which carnival you want to go to. I think you should go to one of them. Because I think there's value in meeting with the vendors and there's value in seeing all the startups and players that you can see around the outside edges of those. Of those floors. And I think there's value in interacting with your peers. And then determine which of the let's call them a relationship based. Conferences you were going to go to.

And when you're going to those conferences, identify the people. You absolutely want to make sure you make a connection with because that is your goal and your objective. And as we always say, begin with the end in mind. All right. That's all for today. Don't forget. Share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Oh, by the way, next week is hymns. I will likely do an episode on Tuesday.

I cannot guarantee Wednesday. We will see, but I will definitely be back on Thursday. You might only get a three today shows next week. We'll see what happens. All right. I think I said this, but I'll say it again. Share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Keep the conversation going. We want to thank our channel sponsors.

We're investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Short test artist, site, enterprise health parlance, Panda health certified health notable. And service 📍 now, check them out at this week. health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.