We are HIMSS Member Spotlight: Pamela Arora

At HIMSS, our members are the heart of our organization, made up of more than 120,000 individuals, 480 provider organizations, 470 non-profit partners and 650 health services organizations. Because their contributions are essential to our success, we seek to recognize their many accomplishments across title, worksite, region and career stage. Today and every day, we celebrate the essential endeavors of these health information and technology changemakers. #wearehimss

Pamela Arora is a member of the HIMSS Executive Network. 

What recent innovation provides the best opportunity to impact healthcare positively?

I am very excited about the prospect of interconnectivity with medical devices. It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that is being perfected continuously in terms of EMR workflows, cybersecurity and device interoperability. All these things are interconnected when you consider the evolution of networked devices and could vastly improve how the industry uses and secures patient data.

With networked devices, the application of AI and machine learning has a lot of promise, whether we use it to improve diagnoses, care or device management. Of course, it’s technology that we must approach carefully. Software as a medical device is not a new concept, but how do you measure the safety and efficacy of a medical device when its program is constantly learning and changing? It’s a question that AAMI is actively working to address with the support of our stakeholders and groups like HIMSS. 

How does success in healthcare/health information and technology look to you? What are top wins or accomplishments for this past year?

Success looks like leveraging the right resource at the right time, in the right place. The industry has seen wins in home healthcare delivery, with health systems capitalizing on new technologies that remotely ensure patient care remains the best it can be.

AAMI is following these wins closely so we may continue to work with influential organizations like HIMSS to identify and gather the right stakeholders and curate reproducible best practices. This way, a renaissance for health technology use – like this home health boom – is not temporary, but is a sign of lasting progress.

What challenges has your organization faced, and how have you found a path to overcome them?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many stakeholder discussions that had historically been face-to-face shifted entirely to online video conferencing. Encouragingly, this came with a fresh crop of subject-matter experts who could involve themselves in crucial discussions more than ever due to remote technologies. AAMI has since adopted hybrid meetings and remote options to allow more stakeholders to be conveniently engaged in our standards development, education and more.

Importantly, leveraging these technologies and remote work tools also helped AAMI find talented new staff, improving the entire organization’s proficiency with these tools.