What Happens at HLTH 2022 (Doesn't) Stay at HLTH

Just this once, our team will share what happened in Vegas. This week’s HLTH 2022 conference was a blockbuster event - with a reported 9,000 attendees - making it one of the most happening hangouts for digital health collaboration. 

An incredible amount of knowledge sharing took place underneath the conference’s giant hanging props. Ease up on your FOMO because our interoperability experts took notes.

What Happened?

Particle CEO Troy Bannister stole the show at his health data panel appearance.

We accepted a hard-earned UCSF Digital Health Award in the New EHR Innovation category during an in-person awards ceremony. So suspenseful, and then we got to go on stage. Just like the Oscars!

This means a lot to all of us at Particle. Congrats to our team and all the nominees!

Troy Bannister, CEO:

After a 5-day Vegas HLTH experience plus a red eye with a connection in Chicago before getting back to NYC at 10 AM, I wanted to take a quick moment to share an anecdote while it’s still fresh in my mind. (Note: when I say ‘fresh’ I mean I barely know what day it is right now.)

These mega conferences are marathon sprints of quick meetings, runnings in, and late night drinks with people you’d otherwise never meet. They’re helpful platforms to bring awareness to your work and they often return new opportunities and many exciting dead ends.

But what is perhaps not talked about enough is the special interactions that occur rarely but certainly when spending four jam packed days together.  

Before getting on stage for the Healthcare Data: No Buzzwords Edition talk, I had to go to the bathroom. Without much time, I ran across the conference looking for a creatively hidden bathroom designed to loop me in circles around the endless slot machine labyrinth. As I jogged out of the backstage area, another gentleman joined me on my run. He too had to use the bathroom and only had 5 minutes to get back to the stage.  

As I looked over, I noticed that it was one of the top people I wanted to meet at HLTH. We both looked at each other and started laughing and chatting. The conversation evolved into an interesting dialogue and resulted in a request for a follow up meeting.  

These little moments are what these conferences provide us. In a world dominated by Zoom, I’m thankful for the inclusivity the health tech world provides us and the opportunities to make friends, business relationships and consolidate our missions towards the greater good.  

HLTH is a doozy if you lean in, but it rewards you with connections across the community of like-minded folks spending great deals of their life attempting to improve the health of our world.

Scott Bowerman, Account Executive:

There are two parts of our industry represented at HLTH, with wildly different experiences and backgrounds, learning how to come together to serve the patient.

One group involves the legacy players, with somber suits and ties questioning why a blue-haired guy in a brightly colored outfit is grilling them with tough questions (shoutout to presenter Nikhil of Out of Pocket for fighting the good fight and challenging his panel to give to expressive answers).

The other group is this new age cohort that wants to change the way we approach healthcare entirely. Companies like One Medical are bringing that patient-centric approach. They ask how we deliver healthcare like a consumer product to patients, anticipate their needs, and start addressing what makes them unique. Think tech, retail, and sneaker-wearing visionaries trying to shake things up.

It feels like there is a desire on both sides to (buzzword warning!) “reimagine the industry”. But the structural debt of the sector, and broken promises to the patient, are still acting as barriers to meaningful progress.

Failed promises have added up over time and trust is low. We need to be hyper diligent in not overpromising, counting the small steps as wins, and staying focused on moving a little bit every day in the right direction.

Honesty, tough conversations, compassion and a willingness to partner and take bold (but measured) risks as an industry is needed.

Players without the moral and ethical foundation in this space will be shunned. Countless anecdotes from many attendees referencing examples of bad behavior demonstrate how close-knit this massive space is. Word spreads fast when you’re doing something right, but maybe even faster when you’re doing wrong.

I left HLTH with a even greater appreciation of the scale of the challenge we’re trying to solve at Particle. I'm also super energized that we can play a major role in fundamentally moving the industry forward, and get closer to meeting the needs of each patient.

Did you miss us? Or do you miss us already? Either way, get in touch today.