Next week, the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference is being held in Orlando, Fla. If you can get there early, HIMSS14 has added a pre-conference mHealth symposium to the agenda. The symposium, "Mobile Health: Opportunities, Challenges and Value Creation," takes place Sunday, Feb. 23 from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Bakul Patel, senior policy advisor and the primary author of the agency's final guidance on mobile medical applications released last September, is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote. Among other topics, Patel will discuss the "disconnect between mobile and mHealth."
Another noteworthy session later in the week is a panel discussion on "Health IT Regulation and the FDASIA Report" to be held Feb. 25 at 10 a.m. The FDASIA-mandated report to Congress on a risk-based regulatory framework is expected in the first quarter of 2014 and will cover clinical decision support software, which wasn't addressed by the FDA's final guidance on mobile medical apps. Scheduled speakers include Patel, FCC Director of Healthcare Initiatives Matt Quinn and ONC Office of Policy and Planning Director Jodi Daniel. Announcement