HIMSS Expands Global Educational Offerings - Acquires Health 2.0 Conferences

The Health 2.0 conferences align new audiences and innovative technologies with HIMSS quality education offerings to support HIMSS’s ongoing vision of better health with IT

Expanding its global educational offerings to familiar and new audiences, HIMSS has acquired the conference component of Health 2.0, effective immediately. HIMSS will establish a new Health 2.0 business unit within the enterprise that includes HIMSS North America, HIMSS Analytics, HIMSS Media, HIMSS Europe, HIMSS AsiaPacific and the Personal Connected Health Alliance.

“Bringing Health 2.0 into the HIMSS enterprise is a major expansion of our available resources to achieve better health through technology,” said H. Stephen Lieber, CAE, HIMSS president/CEO. “This approach will align the knowledge and expertise from the Health 2.0 global network of entrepreneurs, developers and end users engaged in the most leading-edge technologies with that of clinicians, IT professionals, executives, policy leaders and other health IT stakeholders to empower and enable people to live healthier lives.”

Lieber noted that HIMSS has no plans of changing the type or scope of the conferences presented in the past by Health 2.0. Instead, this expansion provides an opportunity for HIMSS to expand its own educational offerings with a stronger focus on start-up technologies in digital health.

Staffing: Indu Subaiya, MD, MBA, CEO and co-chairman, Health 2.0, will join HIMSS as executive vice president for the newly established Health 2.0 business unit and continue to co-host Health 2.0's Annual Fall and Wintertech conferences. Matthew Holt, co-chairman of Health 2.0, will continue to co-host Health 2.0's Annual Fall and Wintertech conferences and host Health 2.0's international conferences.

Health 2.0 Conferences: Health 2.0 held its first conference in 2007 and now holds three regular conferences in the US, with others in Europe and Asia. Over the past decade, Health 2.0 has welcomed more than 25,000 conference attendees worldwide, hosted over 4,000 demos, and introduced hundreds of new companies to the health technology industry.

Matthew Holt, co-chairman of Health 2.0, said, “Since the mid-2000s, Health 2.0 has gone from a fringe movement representing bleeding-edge technologists, patients and clinicians to being an ecosystem of thousands of companies working with all stakeholders to improve the healthcare experience for everyone. We’re thrilled to be working with the largest and most influential organization in health IT—HIMSS—to take the movement mainstream.”

Indu Subaiya, CEO and co-chairman of Health 2.0, said, "The creation of a Health 2.0 business unit within HIMSS represents a natural evolution, as digital health technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by established healthcare organizations. We believe that the union of our businesses and ecosystems will offer unparalleled access and provide new mechanisms for early-stage innovation to permeate and transform the entire healthcare industry in the US and globally.”

In next nine months, seven Health 2.0 conferences will be held from May – December 2017, and a January 2018 conference.

Health 2.0 Europe 2017
May 3-5
Barcelona, Spain

HXR - HxRefactored 2017
June 20-21
Cambridge, Mass.

Health 2.0 11th Annual Fall Conference
Oct. 1-4
Santa Clara, Calif.

Tech for Precision Health
Oct 24
San Francisco, Calif.

Health 2.0 India 2017
Nov. 10
Hyderabad, India

Health 2.0 Japan 2017
December 5-7
Tokyo, Japan

Health 2.0 Wintertech
January 10
San Francisco, Calif.

Health 2.0 will continue to independently operate its Catalyst@Health 2.0 division, which conducts innovations programs, such as codeathons, developer challenges and pilot programs for clients, such as government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and health insurers, leveraging the market research powered by Health 2.0 Source Database.

Kathleen Thomas, managing partner at investment bank Drake Star Partners, initiated the transaction and acted as exclusive financial advisor to Health 2.0.

About HIMSS
HIMSS is a global voice, advisor and thought leader of health transformation through health IT with a unique breadth and depth of expertise and capabilities to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health, healthcare and care outcomes. HIMSS designs and leverages key data assets, predictive models and tools to advise global leaders, stakeholders and influencers of best practices in health IT, so they have the right information at the point of decision.

Through its health IT network of over 1 million experts, over 200 knowledge exchanges and collaborations, including 64,000-plus members, HIMSS drives innovative, forward thinking around best uses of technology in support of better connected care, improved population health and low cost of care.

HIMSS is a not-for-profit, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with additional offices in North America, Europe, United Kingdom and Asia.