The first annual Health-IT World Conference and Expo features a powerful lineup of speakers working to improve efficiency, patient safety and advanced practice management. It begins March 30 and runs through April 1 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

MMS President Thomas E. Sullivan, M.D., will discuss the current status of EHR developments. Dr. Sullivan will share his insights and experience on the development and implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) in Massachusetts and nationwide.

The conference theme addresses mobility of information in health care, with an emphasis on electronic medical records. Speakers will address costs, workflow, regulatory barriers and how EHRs benefit the medical community.

The program is a joint effort of Health-IT World and the Medical Records Institute (MRI). The MRI is headed by one of the most knowledgeable advocates of EHRs, Peter Waegemann. Both Waegemann and Harvard Medical School assistant professor Blackford Middleton, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., will examine return on investment and the broader goals of EHRs.

Allen R. Wenner, M.D., practicing family physician at West Columbia Family Medicine in South Carolina, and Andrew Barbash, M.D., director of mobile health programs at the MRI, will discuss adapting EHRs to accommodate physician and nurse workflows. Paul J. Chang, M.D., director of radiology informatics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, will examine the role of multimedia content and the EHR. This is only a sampling of the conference program.

Other speakers will include William A. Yasnoff, M.D., senior advisor to the National Health Information Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Claudia Tessier, executive director of the Mobile Healthcare Alliance; Cesar Calderon, director of materials management, San Mateo Medical Center; David W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc., chief of the General Medicine Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Alan Ying, M.D., CEO of MercuryMD; John A. Parrish, M.D., co-founder of the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology; and Peter L. Elkin, M.D., director of the Laboratory of Biomedical Informatics at the Department of Internal Medicine for the Mayo Medical School.

There is a special discounted conference rate for MMS members:

• Conference Program $350 (Normally $1,195)
• Exhibit-Only Pass (Normally $50)

To obtain this special discount, use the exclusive MMS priority code, MMS, when you register at www.health-itworldexpo.com/healthworldexpo/V40/index.cvn?id=10056&p_navID=103.

- Steve Phelan