AAMI-FDA Interoperability Summit Convenes Next Week

Nearly 200 healthcare and technology experts are set to converge on a suburb outside Washington, D.C., next week for an ambitious two-day summit on interoperability hosted by AAMI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“This event is happening at a very important time in the implementation of health information technology (IT),” says AAMI President Mary Logan. “An Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on health IT safety makes it clear that patient safety should have a much higher priority. Congress has mandated that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services develop a plan for regulating health IT. As hospitals begin to actually use the electronic health record, device connectivity is moving to center stage.”

The AAMI-FDA Interoperability Summit kicks off Oct. 2 in Herndon, VA. The gathering will mark the fourth time that the association and agency—sometimes working with other partners—have joined forces with summits aimed at shedding light on some of the toughest challenges in medical technology.

A collection of stakeholders—including clinicians, manufacturers, academics, regulators, and healthcare technology management professionals—are expected to engage in a deep, moderated discussion on topics such as design issues, research gaps, and wireless considerations for safety critical devices.

Summit attendees will identify “clarion themes” or priorities that will be addressed in a future action plan.

The summit will feature speeches from a myriad of high-profile health IT luminaries. David Classen, associate professor of medicine at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, will deliver the keynote address on Oct. 2. He was a member on the IOM committee that published the health IT safety report.

Two leaders from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology are also scheduled to speak: David Muntz, principal deputy national coordinator, and Jacob Reider, MD, chief medical officer.

Additionally, Nancy Leveson, a renowned system and software safety expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, is scheduled to address summit attendees.

Thirteen organizations have signed on to support the summit, including The Joint Commission, the Health Information and Management Systems Society, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, and Underwriters Laboratories.

For more information about the summit, including how to register, click here.

AAMI, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1967. It is a diverse community of nearly 7,000 healthcare technology professionals united by one important mission—supporting the healthcare community in the development, management, and use of safe and effective medical technology.