Amid concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus, more vendors continue to pull out of the technical exhibition at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) meeting, scheduled for March 9-13 in Orlando, FL.
On March 3, Siemens Healthineers announced that it would not be exhibiting at any trade shows in the month of March, including HIMSS 2020 and the European Congress of Radiology (which has been postponed until July). A number of other IT vendors also said they would not be at HIMSS 2020, including Amazon, Cisco, Intel, and Salesforce.
The list of companies taking a pass on HIMSS 2020 continues to growth. Within the medical imaging space, these include Visage Imaging, Change Healthcare, Dell Technologies, and Butterfly Network. A list of companies choosing to not exhibit had risen to more than 50 as of March 4. For point of comparison, HIMSS in total has nearly 1,300 exhibitors.
In a March 3 statement, HIMSS said its "top priority remains the health and safety of all participants." The organization noted that as of March 2, Orlando resorts and parks remained open and operational. HIMSS also said HIMSS 2020 would be a "handshake-free meeting," and an increased number of hand sanitization sites would be available in the Orange County Convention Center.
