The past two months have been very exciting ones for digital health. On the East Coast alone, there was the NJ HIMMS Conference in Atlantic City, Digital Health Conference in New York City and mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C. We were lucky enough to listen, learn, and share in all three conferences. Between the three conferences there tens of thousands of healthcare executives, administrators, clinicians, and technologists. There were four major themes that emerged on the ground and Twitter during each conference.

Here are Twitter highlights from the conferences:
 

1. Clinicians need technologies that make communication easier and data more accessible—without harming patient relationships

80K deaths caused every year by lack of data at point of care according to Bettina Experton @Humetrix #mHealth14

— Practice Unite (@PracticeUnite) December 8, 2014

Communication failures account for 80% of medical errors Siva Submaranian @zynxhealth #mHealth14 — Practice Unite (@PracticeUnite) December 8, 2014

I hate EMRs. I want the screens out of the office. They interfere with empathy. @DrShlain #mHealth14

— Vanessa Mason (@vanessamason) December 8, 2014

Why can’t we connect #mobile devices into a single #careteam to fix #inpatient issues? #mHealth14 pic.twitter.com/l1Ou4bkPYy — Daria Cuda (@DariaCuda) December 8, 2014

2. Interoperability must become a requirement in 2015

“It’s a great time to be in healthcare. It’s a great time to innovate. Only partnership will make this all work.” @HarryLeiderMD #mHealth14 — HIMSS (@HIMSS) December 8, 2014

#MedTechBoston #mHealth14 Opening: Healthcare needs interoperable and open data & systems to deliver connected care. pic.twitter.com/5yPebWhIXS — Stuart Hochron (@HochronStuart) December 8, 2014

Transparency will become more difficult to manage for healthcare organizations with siloed data systems @NYeHealth @HealthcareWen #DHC14

— Practice Unite (@PracticeUnite) November 17, 2014

3. Patients must be enabled to engage in the care process

.@EricTopol: “The ‘smarter hospital room’ is the patient’s bedroom with remote monitoring. And, that is the future.” #DHC14

— iHealthBeat.org (@iHealthBeat) November 17, 2014

“patients represent a massively underutilized resource in healthcare, because of their ability to use their own data” #UK attendee at #DHC14 — Wen Dombrowski MD (@HealthcareWen) November 17, 2014

4. Healthcare providers need custom, flexible solutions

MT @ThePatientsSide: Too many one size fits all #mHealth solutions. Need to adjust solutions to who you are. #mHealth14 — Healthcare IT News (@HITNewsTweet) December 8, 2014

Barriers to entry in health apps has lowered, now too many, need those which integrate into clinical workflow #mHealth14 — John Sharp (@JohnSharp) December 10, 2014