Healthcare experts from Saudi Arabia and around the world will gather in Riyadh next month for the 2011 HIMSS Middle East Leadership Summit.

The summit, being held at the Four Seasons Hotel on May 29, is one of the most important gatherings for senior executive management, hospital IT directors and governmental leaders of healthcare organisations in the Middle East this year. It will focus on collaborating with patients, providers, businesses, and government to create truly transferable medical records that benefit all healthcare stakeholders, from patients and hospitals to insurance providers.

Keynote speaker will be Dr C Martin Harris, chief information officer, Cleveland Clinic, US, who is considered one of the world’s leading creative minds.

In his address, Dr Harris will examine how the age of bottomless budgets is over, while at the same time the demands on the hospital and healthcare systems are exploding.  He will answer how a healthcare CIO can navigate these incredibly challenging trends and still succeed with the first step of implementing working IT systems.

The summit this year is devoted to exploring and examining best practices to tackle and succeed in an increasingly challenging environment.

Speakers at the Leadership Summit will include: John Hoyt, executive vice president, HIMSS Analytics; Eng Sami Al-Akeel, CIO & communication director, Security Forces Hospital Program, Saudi Arabia; Andre Greyling, CIO, Hong Kong Hospital Authority; Tom Smith, chief information officer, NorthShore University Health System, Chicago; Antoine Geissbuhler, professor of medical informatics, University of Geneva Hospital, Switzerland.

The Leadership Summit will be followed by Healthcare IT Management Conference and Exhibition on May 30 and 31. The conference focuses on the practical challenges for management professionals in the integration of deployment of healthcare IT (HIT). – TradeArabia News Service