Today in health, it Vive we're here on the last day. And today we're going to talk about why Vive was worth my time. My name is bill Russell. I'm former CIO for a 16 hospital system. And creator this week health instead of channels and 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 test artist site interprise health parlance, certified health, notable and service.

Now check them out at this week. health.com/today. All right. Well, I just want to get right to, Hey, by the way. We've. I'm going to announce this later, but, , we've raised close to $10,000 at the five conference for Alex's lemonade stand. We want to thank everybody who participated. In captain's campaign for cures. That takes us up over $26,000 for the year. We have an incredibly generous community. And we thank you for being a part of it. If you didn't get to be a part of it and want to participate a couple of ways, you can do that. Find us at him.

So we're going to do it again. If you're there. , but you know what, quite frankly, just go to the page, go to, , this week health.com. And I at the top right hand corner, you're going to see the Alex's lemonade stand logo. Click on that. Go ahead and put your donation in, , put a, put a comment in there.

I'd love to thank you for being a part of it. , Charles Boicey. Gave a very generous donation. At the five conference and, , several others. And we appreciate that. All right. Last thing. I'm going to keep pushing, mentoring, share this podcast with a friend or colleague, usually as a foundation for discussion. Whether I'm right.

Whether I'm wrong, you're mentoring them when you're telling them bill is wrong and here's why he's wrong. They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Alright, here we go. So I want to talk about five. And, , I'm going to give you the top five reasons. It was worth my time. Not from an arrogant standpoint, but the top five reasons, I think it's worth. A CIO is time to be at a conference like Vive. , you know, I'm critical of, of these things.

I'm critical of the carnival. I'm not a fan of the carnival. I see. Value in. Carnival or boat show, whatever you want to call it. It just, I just, I don't know. I don't like the feel of it and, and those kinds of things. However, , there is there's value and I think there's, , there's, there's value in coming together. And at times the more people you can bring together. The better it is, and that creates a carnival carnival atmosphere.

So while I'm critical of that, , I will say there is value. Let me tell you some of the values I'm going to do a top five. I'll do a countdown in reversal order. , the first is fun. We have a very stressful job. If you are a healthcare leader, you have a stressful job. It's good to get. It's good to get away. Right.

Just from time to time. It's good to get away. It's good to have fun. It's good to go see Billy idol. If that's your thing. I did not go to Billy idol. I apologize. But, , you know, it's, it's good to just, it's good to go to the carnival. It's good to enjoy things. It's good to see your friends.

It's good to have a drink with some people you can, , release with commiserate with and those kinds of things. So it's good to have fun. Right. That's number five. , and you're going to say, well, that's not worth it to my health system. Well, let me give you some, some other reasons for going, , number four. , give back. You know, I've talked to some health system leaders who I admittedly won't get much out of the conference and choose not to come. And I'll agree.

They probably won't get a ton out of the conference. They work at very, , great institutions. They're part of other groups. They get solid. , interaction with those groups. , but I think there's this aspect of giving back and their absence is felt when they're not here. It is felt at the conference. I realized that you can't attend every conference and there are, , there are a lot of options for you in this industry. , And, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting.

There are actually a plethora and we're part of the challenge where. Introducing the 2 29 project. , meetings, which is another option out there. , you have to choose. And, , But I will say this. There is a, there, I believe there's a, an opportunity for you to put something in your calendar to give back. , I also find this as, , , the carnivals are a decent place to mentor the next generation.

First of all, you can introduce them to a lot of people. , you can walk the floor with them and do education there. You could sit in on panel discussions and have discussions with. People. So I did a lot of mentoring at hymns back in the day. Five didn't exist back in the day. But the time spring and fall forums did.

And I did a mentoring in those, in those situations, so fun and giving back. So that's 5, 4, 3. , This is going to sound weird, but the hosted buyer meetings, , this is about as respectful a way. To do this, that I've seen at these carnivals. 15 minutes, no strings attached. Check out the partner, let them see if there's an opportunity. The risk is you get, you get spanned. , the upside is you may find a valuable new partner. , clearly every year I hear mixed results on this, but I'd say 80% of them are positive. , you know, 15 minutes. , , I heard one story.

One CIO said, look, I met with competing vendors right in a row. It's that way it was fresh. It was in my mind, I was asking them similar questions as I went along and I learned things. So I was able to go from, , in an area where they were trying to explore. They went from one vendor to the next to the next.

Now, before what you do is you go from booth to booth, to booth, but sometimes when you go to the booth, You don't find the right person there. When you go to the hosted buyer meetings, they make sure that the right person is there and that you're talking to them. In some cases, it's an se in some cases, it's the actual developer of the solution and, or the CEO or the owner.

I mean, so some really good discussions happen that way. I mean, the 20% negative were. , you know, it's 15 minutes of your time. I mean, Th there, there, Hey, there wasn't value. I didn't, whatever. , they may not be buying at this time, but they wanted their ticket paid for. , you know, that's just your choice.

That's a. Trade-off but at the end of the day, I think if you do it right, it is a Rosette. Respectful way to do that. And generally very positive feedback from both sides. , I will say that there were, oh, and this is a number two. There were some really good panel discussions. I saw an east Chopra.

Micky Tripathi yeah. Sheesh. Treasure talking about interoperability. And AI transparency. It was a wonderful session there. , obviously excellent resources, incredibly smart. , the back and forth between them was really good. And so that was an excellent discussion. Assad Chaudry trusses, spring men, Brian stair rude, , Marie CIVICUS. , talking policy and AI governance was also a really good now I didn't sit through the whole thing.

I was moving from place to place. I got about five minutes of that. And , it was, , a really solid discussion. , from them. So now it mentally, again, I didn't see a ton of these panel discussions, but these were excellent. I think, , , you get to pick the ones that were relevant to you. And gotten a fair amount out of it. And so now, even though it's in a carnival atmosphere, there is very good discussions going on around the floor.

And if you seek them out, , you're going to walk away with some insights as you do that. So that's number two. And the number one reason I'm very consistent on this. The number one reason to go to these is, and for me, it has value is connection with your peers. I had several conversations with peers at this conference.

Some, I will only talk with twice a year and others that we rekindled a need for more frequent discussions. I kick up. A bunch of new concepts to explore and collaborations that are going to lead to improvements at my organization. And value to the industry. , and I think that's the number one reason we go to these conferences. It is the connection with other people. And I'm excited. You know, I would say. You know, four or five of the discussions led to, Hey, have you considered doing this at this week?

Health or, Hey, can I do something with you? I'd like to partner with you. And those kickoff really interesting conversations as we explore those things. , and I'm, , I'm excited. I'm excited about what we're going to be able to bring to this week health, but that same thing happens for our CIO. Right.

You have a conversation without somebody, it starts by talking about change healthcare and what's going on in the cybersecurity world. And then they say something and it triggers a thought and you're sitting there going. It's interesting. You would bring that up. And then the other thing is you can have that honest conversation.

You're not having the honest conversation on the panel discussion and you're not having the honest conversation. , in a public forum, but when you're at that 1 0 1 and you can talk cybersecurity with that person across from you, you say, Hey, we're really struggling with this. How are you guys handling that? Those are really valuable conversations that you have only a handful of ways to have those clearly you could reach out to them. Have a meeting call or whatever you're going to do. , But a lot of times, you're not thinking about that person until they're right in front of you.

You have that conversation to trigger something. And then away you go. And so I think connection with peer. So number five, fun. Number four, give back number three. , the connections with partners in a controlled environment, the hosted buyer meetings. , actually the panel discussions probably pick up some things on areas that you may not be focused on right now.

Policy. , what's going on in the government governance, you know what. , there's just a lot of stuff out there. And then finally connection with peers and the value that just interacting with people and the discussions generates. That's why it was worth my time. I will say that a. If anyone from Vive or the, , , the people at health are listening. That the, , the venue was not great. , and they will get this feedback.

I'm sure. The food was, , less than you would expect from a health conference. Los Angeles is probably not the best place to have a conference right now. , it's also, , when they go to Miami and Los Angeles and it's so far, I think they lose, , a section of , the country, when they do that. , I think this is one of the reasons that Beckers goes to Chicago every time.

One of the there's several reasons they go there. I think it's one of the reasons that hymns. , had their comeback in, , In Chicago. , by the way. I, I'm not a huge fan of Chicago as a venue because I think McCormick's. In a bad place and, , too far away from the hotel, so forth and so on, , but Nashville is a really good place.

And that's where it's going back to next year. I think it's the best venue that I've seen a Vive meeting at. , the health conferences spent at different places. Boston wasn't a bad place, but again, it's on the coast. , Vegas is not my favorite venue, but it works. It works. , well, and I went to a health conference in, , Vegas.

I think the first one was in Vegas. Anyway, There's a lot better places to go then LA and the food, they were ran out of food on the first day. , you had to walk. , quite a distance to get to the food. Usually the food is , on the floor and you get to hang out there and stay there.

I don't know. You know, these things are hard to put on. I will grant them that they're hard to put on. It's hard to find the right venue. , it's hard to strike the balance of, , attracting everybody. And sometimes when you go away from the coast, you lose the people on the coast. , but anyway, I'm sure there's some other places to consider. Looking forward to Nashville.

Great location. Last time it was there. It was, , it was excellent. So, , I don't know. Maybe I'll see you there. ,

one last thing as we wrap up today's episode, I want to take a moment and extend our thoughts and prayers to, , Gerrish Williams. Who's a team member at this week health. He had to leave the conference to be with his family. And, , I just want you to know that you are missed. And , our thoughts and our hearts go out to you and your loved ones at this time.

All right.

That's all for today. Don't forget. Share this podcast with a friend or colleague. I pushed you to mentor, but you could just talk about it with your peers and it doesn't have to be a mentoring relationship. And maybe it's a way for you to connect with somebody and say, Hey, let's listen to this. And. And, , converse via text or whatever it happens to be. , I think that would be great. , we want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Short test artist site interprise health. Parlance certified health, notable and 📍 service.

Now check them out at this week. health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.