Highlights of HIMSS 2012 – @EricTopol: Creative Destruction of Medicine

Last week all the people involved in healthcare technology – clinicians, care providers, technologists, administrators and solution providers  convened in Vegas for the annual HIMSS trade show and conference to share best practices, latest innovations in medicine and technology.

HIMSS 2012 was by far the best HIMSS I have ever attended as I had an opportunity to check out more sessions on innovation and meet some innovative vendors in wireless and HIE space. I also had a chance to listen to Dr. Eric Topol’s speech on Creative Destruction of Medicine, which was the icing on the HIMSS cake this year.  “HIT x.o – Beyond the Edge” sessions were by far the best and were truly beyond the edge in showcasing the grass root innovations thats happening at the intersection of medicine and technology.

Of all the sessions, Dr. Eric Topol‘s speech on Creative Destruction of Medicine stands out the best as he laid out how wireless technology and consumer driven wireless technology is transforming medicine and bringing medicine out of its cocoon in terms of technology and innovation. If you didn’t make it to HIMSS 12 this year, you can still view Dr. Topol‘s speech he gave at TEDMED couple of years ago and read his latest book on the same subject, which is available for sale now.  If you are interested in intersection of biology and technology Topol’s book is a great place to start.

Mobile app development gets “WAC”ked up

Mobile industry got shaken up – for good –  with the annoucement from Wholesale Application Community -shortly WAC – a global alliance formed by telecom carriers and device manufacturers (exclude Apple, Google and RIM from this) to create a unified open industry platform for developers to build and sell applications.

Who is WAC from WAC’s FAQ?

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is an open, global alliance formed from the world’s leading telecoms operators. WAC will unite a fragmented applications marketplace and create an open industry platform that benefits the entire ecosystem, including applications developers, handset manufacturers, OS owners, network operators and end users

Mobile dev world welcomes WAC:

Open letter to WAC from mobile developer community

– Mobile dev community is open to work with WAC with concerns regarding revenue share, certification,  sales and marketing, distribution of enterprise apps

Tiny Hippos’ ( mobile dev startup in Waterloo) thoughts on WAC,

Views from the Analysts:

Gomo News: Strategic Mobile News on WAC

Moco News: A standards based app store is still mostly a work in progress

If  you are mobile developer focused only on developing for iPhone or Android or Blackberry, here is another opportunity to grab a share in the 3billion + plus market where is Nokia is the leader.

You may sit on the fence based on your business model or focus but there is some serious money to be made in providing apps to the 3 billion plus market and have the capability to reach all the devices and carriers with an app that can ran on any WAC compliant device

Also agreed its a work in progress on all the concerns raised by the mobile developer community and will have to see how it plays out.

Saravana Rajan