ViVE 2022 Conference Review (CHIME plus HLTH)

by | Mar 17, 2022 | Blog

[Author:

STEPHEN KEELER  |  VP, Payer & Provider Sales]

 

Early March saw not just college kids on their spring break in Miami Beach, but also another vibrant group – health IT professionals – at a new conference, VIVE. Born out of the recent team-up of CHIME with HLTH (CHIME had a serious, and apparently, permanent break-up with HIMSS in the recent past), VIVE promised a unique blend of the academic, educational weightiness of health system CIOs that makes up CHIME, with the panache of the new whiz-bang conference kid on the block, HLTH.  A fair number of senior level speakers and executives from device manufacturers and health plans added to the energy of the show and promise of an even better VIVE in the future.

As a maiden voyage, VIVE did not disappoint.  The keynote and educational sessions offered a wide range of hot topics and serious subject matter expertise regarding healthcare transformation, interoperability and data liquidity, health equity and more, all within the overwhelming context of everyone coming out of the pain and discombobulation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intimacy of the Miami Convention Center allowed for attendees to rub-elbows with speakers and fellow attendees, as did that most of the meals were provided as part of the registration price and served on the exhibit floor.

HLTH brought to VIVE their speed-dating app and dedicated tables for the short talks between vendors and potential buyers (who are invited to go for free if they meet with at least 8 vendors), but due to a relatively high rate of no shows, the consensus opinion shared by vendors is that the jury is still out on how valuable this feature actually is. The floor itself hosted many of the usual suspects in health IT, flavored with newer vendors bringing to market new devices and applications rich with artificial intelligence and machine learning. While attendee flow in and out of the exhibit hall was consistent though not overwhelming, vendors were generally positive about their booth traffic though the mix was largely skewed towards vendor-to-vendor interactions vs. meaningful buy-side decision maker conversations.

Rather than become branded as a vendor-to-vendor dominant show, VIVE will hopefully continue tweaking their format next year to increase engagement among all attendees and build upon the overall success of the VIVE 2022 inaugural conference.