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Promoting a two-heads-are-better-than-one approach, Baylor Health System's David Muntz and consultant Stuart Gardner called for greater collaboration between IT departments and clinical engineering during a Tuesday afternoon session at HIMSS11.It's to everyone's advantage, said Muntz, senior vice president and CIO of Dallas-based Baylor, which operates 26 hospitals and facilities at 160 locations. In fact, he called for "radical collaboration," to which Gardner agreed.

Information technology could be a catalyst for improving global health, said Patricia Abbott, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health and co-director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing Knowledge, Information Management and Sharing.But she warned her audience Tuesday at HIMSS11 that the promise of IT might fail if "it's thought of in purely western terms."Abbott urged attendees to think of IT through the lens of poverty reduction, human rights and local and cultural context.

Cisco's annual Community for Connected Health Summit offered HIMSS11 attendees on Monday a forum for education and idea-sharing - discussing hot-button topics in healthcare and unveiling promising new product prototypes.The morning was devoted to perspectives on innovation and emerging trends in healthcare services, taking stock of the economic imperatives that affect care delivery and examining how they can be shifted. Presentations focused on the "disruptive" IT advancement that will continue to transform medicine in the coming years.