Heavyweight Healthcare Bloggers Invade HIMSS

One of the ongoing sessions throughout the HIMSS 2010 event is the panelist of healthcare bloggers, and each day present a different panel of recognizable voices in the healthcare blogosphere. (For a listing of each day's bloggers, visit the HIMSS10 website.)

Monday featured Dr. Val Jones of Val Health; Evan Steele of EMR Straight Talk; John Moore of Chilmark Research; Anthony Guerra of Health System CIO; John Lynn of EMR and HIPAA; and Matthew Holt of The Health Care Blog.

The roundtable session was an opportunity for attendees to sit in and ask questions about how these bloggers initally started out their blogs, how they have maintained them, what tools they have used to help drive traffic and gain credibility, and much more. Throughout the session, the panelists took turns speaking about different topics, and while one person spoke, the rest of the bloggers flexed their Web-savvy muscles in a variety of ways. John Moore engaged Twitter users and asked for questions. Dr. Val set up a live video stream through her laptop so that anyone remotely could sit in (she still has a live stream going). Matthew Holt inhaled a Chinese carton full of noodles.

At one point, an audience member suggested that physicians don't read these blogs and, aside from the panel, there weren't many other physician bloggers, This elicited quite a reaction, mostly laughter, as the panel fired back with all kinds of ammo. The fact is that physicians are reading (and writing) more blogs than ever, as evidenced by the number of comments and traffic statistics for any of the blogs listed above. These blogs not only act as a source of information for healthcare providers who may be confused about any number of issues going on in healthcare, but they also provide a forum for practical discussion among everyone in all facets of the healthcare industry. And as the intersection of politics and healthcare leads to more legislation, incentives, and mass confusion, these blogs will inevitably make their way into your favorites folder, if they haven't already.