As Europe's leading industry event for healthcare IT, conhIT - Connecting Healthcare IT fulfilled all the high expectations placed in it. 5,980 trade visitors from more than 40 countries attended conhIT in Berlin, 500 more than last year. From 9 to 11 April, 320 exhibitors from 14 countries displayed their healthcare IT products and services on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds.
"Exhibitor and trade visitor numbers rose significantly, impressively confirming conhIT's wide appeal for the entire healthcare IT sector," said Dr. Christian Göke, COO Messe Berlin, summarising the event. "Over three days packed with events trade visitors were able to gain a broad impression of innovative healthcare IT solutions and find out about the latest topics at events specially organised for professionals. Looking back, what defined conhIT 2013 was its comprehensive market overview and that it offered outstanding opportunities for advanced training and networking," he added.
Event organisers bvitg e. V. draw positive conclusion "True to the slogan of the conhIT Congress, 'Good IT - better medical care', there is now an increasing focus on healthcare IT. In recent years significant progress has been made in a number of fields," said Bernhard Calmer, chairman of the German Association of the Healthcare IT Industry (bvitg). "That was also evident at conhIT. Never before were there so many events as this year. With every relevant industry institution involved, conhIT made sure the programme featured fascinating topics that addressed every target audience."
The positive mood within the industry could be felt everywhere at conhIT. Visitors and exhibitors inside the well-attended display halls and two adjacent conference halls exchanged experiences and found out about the latest aspects of healthcare IT. On the afternoons at conhIT, over a period of three days, there were 13 Congress sessions, four seminars and some 100 Networking Events, more than in any previous year.
Partnership with Belgium a success
Belgium, this year's partner country which was represented by Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, featured prominently at the Industrial Fair and other events. Trade visitors made use of this opportunity to meet Belgian exhibitors and find out more about their products.
"For the 24 companies from Belgium that attended conhIT this was a specialist industry event where experts could exchange views and meet with German and international customers and partners", was how Jürgen Maerschand, the Flemish trade attaché, commented the results of cooperation with Messe Berlin and bvitg at conhIT. "We look forward to cooperating in the future and to working on other joint projects," said Maerschand.
Strong partners, an outstanding congress
For the first time, Congress delegates at conhIT 2013 were able to use voting tools to respond directly to moderators' questions, rate lectures and take an interactive part in the Congress. This feature made it possible for an award honouring the best Congress session to be presented on Thursday already, at the conhIT closing event. Dr. Carl Dujat, president of the BVMI, presented the award to Dr. Pierre-Michael Meier of the Initiative for Management and IT Service Management in the Healthcare Industry (IuiG), who together with Helmut Schlegel of KH-IT had sponsored and moderated the session entitled "Maximising efficiency through IT process support."
"We are very satisfied with the way conhIT went this year. The fact that most of the Congress sessions and Academy seminars were so well-attended was proof that we clearly made the right choice of topics and speakers," said Dr. Dujat commenting on the quality of the specialist programme.
Healthcare IT industry offers prospects for young people too
The keen interest expressed by students and graduates proved that healthcare IT companies offer good prospects as employers. A total of nine universities had organised excursions for their students to conhIT. Numerous exhibitors made use of the opportunity to post their vacancies at the job exchange or introduce themselves on the pages of the Career Guide.
"On Wednesday at the Career Workshop 300 people thronged the Congress hall," said Prof. Dr. Paul Schmücker of GMDS, the organiser and moderator of the event. "The aim of GMDS, BVMI, KH-IT and bvitg, the associations involved in career activities, is to bring students and young professionals into contact with healthcare IT companies and institutions and to further an exchange of information. That aim was achieved," said Schmücker.
Directly following the workshop an award presentation took place honouring students' diploma work focusing on practical healthcare IT issues. The winner was Iris Schmücker of the University of Duisburg-Essen whose diploma was entitled "The concept and implementation of a serious game for shaping individual training."
Highlights of the first day in words and pictures
Besides those present at the event, thousands more were able to follow the keynote speeches held by speakers at the conhIT opening event by tuning into live videos on their computers. Anyone who missed the opening event on 9 April can still watch video clips online. Videos of the opening event, the session hosted by the partner country Belgium, as well as the international session can be watched at http://141.64.64.107/presentations/conhit/.
Comments by exhibitors on conhIT 2013
Gerd Friss, Marketing Supervisor, 3M Health Information Systems: "conhIT has finally made its mark as the meeting place of the industry. From our point of view the event was another success. bvitg and Messe Berlin organised conhIT in a very professional manner yet again. We will be back."
Winfried Post, General Manager, Agfa HealthCare DACH: "After scheduling a larger number of appointments with customers and visitors prior to conhIT it was clear we would be inundated with visitors at the fair, and that was indeed the case. More and more visitors are very well informed, enabling us to offer them detailed information about our products. Their focus is mainly on our interactive mobile solutions and our new, fully integrated voice recognition system. Overall, I can say that conhIT has established itself as an event for IT heads and company executives keen to find out more in this field."
Michaela Bicker, CompuGroup Medical Deutschland: "conhIT 2013 exceeded all the expectations. We are highly satisfied with the results we have achieved at conhIT 2013 so far. Outstanding Congress events, fascinating panel discussions and workshops and a very well attended Industrial Fair rounded off our overall impression of this leading eHealth event and demonstrated that conhIT is attracting growing industry attention."
Andreas Rehermann, Head of Marketing and Hospital Sales, Medizinische Medien Informations GmbH: "There was keen interest in 'our' topic, the action plan for safe drug treatment (AMTS). The number of delegates who attended the lectures at the Congress and Networking Events and who took part in relevant guided tours at the fair was much higher than last year. The number and quality of the meetings we had also reflected the growing interest in AMTS."
Uwe Lehmann, Head of Business Management and Marketing Health Services Deutschland, Siemens AG Healthcare Sector: "The fact that Siemens has been a partner of conhIT since it was first launched shows how important this event is for us. Once again our expectations were fulfilled in every respect. The halls were booked up, the discussions were informative and in particular we had successful meetings with our customers and partners."
Andrea Röwekamp, Marketing, T-Systems SFPH GmbH: "conhIT has fully established itself as the platform for the hospital IT sector. Both the large number of visitors and the well-informed discussions we had were a reflection of this. For us the fair was a success."
More comments by exhibitors can be found at www.conhit.com.
About conhIT - Connecting Healthcare IT
conhIT targets decision-makers in IT departments, management, in the medical profession, nursing, doctors, doctors' networks and medical care centres who need to find out about the latest developments in IT and healthcare, meet members of the industry and make use of opportunities for high-level advanced training. As an integrated event, over a period of three days conhIT combines an Industrial Fair, a Congress and Networking Events that are of particular interest to this sector. Launched in 2008 by the German Association of Healthcare IT Vendors (bvitg) as the meeting place for the healthcare IT industry and organised by Messe Berlin, this event recently recorded 320 exhibitors and 5,980 visitors in 2013 and has now become Europe's leading
event for the healthcare IT sector.
conhIT is organised in cooperation with the following industry associations: the German Association of Healthcare IT Vendors (bvitg), the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS), the German Association of Medical Computer Scientists (BVMI). The National Association of Hospital IT Managers (KH-IT) and the Working Group of Directors of Medical Computing Centres at German University Clinics (ALKRZ) have provided contributions to the subject matter.