Health Data Management Top 16 Health IT Experts List

Health Data Management Magazine is an obvious go-to source for me, given my focus on developments related to the sources and uses of health data.  

It’s gratifying to see that the feeling is mutual. HDM Magazine recently published a list of 16 Experts on Twitter Who are Leading the Discussion in Health IT and included me among some highly respected peers.

Any curated list is going to leave out some equally good candidates. Every time a list comes out, people who aren’t included tend to call out bias in the selection process. There’s always bias. But, as a publication that is well-versed in editorial curation, HDM Magazine does an excellent job of selecting a core group that is consistent in their focus on health IT and data-driven developments in healthcare and are known for providing a good deal of context around the issues. Better yet, the group includes a range of perspectives from within provider organizations, health IT vendors, patient advocates, government agencies, analysts, start-ups and research foundations. Despite the different perspectives, this group includes people who demonstrate a genuine interest in improving our current healthcare industry (I would say “healthcare system”, but that raises too many thoughts about lack of systems thinking in healthcare).

I don’t know if HDM Magazine made a conscious effort to include an equal number of women and men, but if they did, they exceeded that goal by naming nine women and seven men. In today’s world, that still merits a special mention and a “thank you” from the #HITChicks community!

Here’s the complete list of Twitter handles:

@EricTopol

@SeattleMamaDoc

@ePatientDave

@Farzad_MD

@SusannahFox

@DrVal

@Cascadia

@Nxtstop1

@MandiBPro

@janicemccallum

@john_chilmark

@KBDeSalvo

@DrLeslieSaxon

@StephenJDowns

@kmmore

@deansittig

The list includes some people who have been part of my Twitter community from the beginning (e.g., @ePatientDave @Cascadia and @SusannahFox) and some newer colleagues and friends and a couple of people I should obviously add to my list. 

Note, HDM Magazine created a similar list several years ago of top health IT social media people to follow and John Poikonen (@poikonen)  created a public Twitter list to make it easy for anyone to follow all the people on the list. That list remains one of my favorite lists to scan each morning. Note, John has added a few names to his list, as is his prerogative. In that same vein, I’ve just created a public list with all 16 of the health IT experts that HDM Magazine included on their list and have made two additions: @HDMMagazine and @poikonen! Here’s the link to the public list:   

https://twitter.com/janicemccallum/lists/hdmhealthitlist