In an effort to expand its global educational offerings to new and existing audiences, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has acquired the Health 2.0 conference division.

Going forward, HIMSS will establish a new Health 2.0 business unit within its organization 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, HIMSS president and CEO.

He continued, “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.”

With no plans to change the type or scope of the Health 2.0 conferences, HIMSS will instead look to expand its own educational offerings with a stronger focus on start-up technologies in digital health, according to Lieber.

Indu Subaiya, M.D., CEO and co-chairman of 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.

As co-chairman of Health 2.0, Matthew Holt will continue to co-host Health 2.0’s Annual Fall and Wintertech conferences and host Health 2.0’s international conferences. 

In support of HIMSS’s ongoing vision of better health with IT, the conferences are designed to align new audiences and innovative technologies with quality educational programming.

Health 2.0 launched its first conference in 2007 and now holds three regular conferences in the U.S., with others in Europe and Asia, including Health 2.0 Europe; HXR-HxRefactored; Health 2.0 11th Annual Fall Conference; Tech for Precision Health; Health 2.0 India; Health 2.0 Japan and Health 2.0 Wintertech.

During the past decade, Health 2.0 has welcomed more than 25,000 global conference attendees, hosted 4,000-plus demos and introduced hundreds of new companies to the health technology industry. 

“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,” Holt explained.

He added, “We’re thrilled to be working with the largest and most influential organization in health IT – HIMSS – (and) to take the movement mainstream.”

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

“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,” Subaiya said.

She continued, “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.”