HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf was honored during the HIMSS Native American & Indigenous Health Symposium for his commitment to the community.
LAS VEGAS – The HIMSS Native American & Indigenous Health Symposium, held each year at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, creates a place for health leaders to come together to share their wins as well as ongoing concerns.
It’s among the few places where Tribal and Indigenous communities can come together on healthcare and technology, according to Brenda Hood, client experience analyst for HealtHIE Nevada and is also the Nevada HIMSS Tribal Liaison for the community.
HIMSS, the parent company of Healthcare Finance News has chapters nationwide and is also involved in advocacy for the Native American and Indigenous Health community that has expanded to include aboriginal Australia and Alaskan Native Tribes.
In 2024, the Indian Health Service, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, announced at HIMSS24 that it had awarded Oracle the contract to upgrade the electronic health record across the 574 federally-recognized Tribes. Work began in Oklahoma to replace technology that in some cases was over 40 years old.
“When we come here to HIMSS, this is a way for us to collaborate,” said Robert Coffey, health informatics IT manager for the Iowa Tribe Division of Health.
At the end of the half-day symposium, Robert and Wallace Coffey honored HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf for the continuing work HIMSS has done on diversity, equity and inclusion. They gave him the name of Big Moccasins.
“For the past couple of years, organizations have shied away from DEI, but not this organization,” Robert Coffey said. “This organization has really made a commitment to Native American and Indigenous Community.”
A big theme of the symposium was around the importance of sovereignty for Tribes and indigenous peoples. This includes sovereignty for healthcare data.
There’s still many questions around data collection and governance, said A.C. Locklear, who heads the National Indian Health Board.
There are complex agreements with states and Locklear has been working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on better data sharing, especially for Tribal clinics and individuals.
“We want to make sure that Tribes are in spaces where decisions are being made,” Locklear said.
Tribal health is threatened by staffing shortages that all rural health communities are facing.
“In at least half off facilities,” Locklear said, “if we lose one ER physician, they’ll have to close their doors.”
Efforts are underway, he said, for the first Native American medical school.
Other barriers include lack of infrastructure development and lack of funding, Hood said. True interoperability, she said, strengthens the rural health ecosystem.
Email the writer: [email protected]