HIMSS10: Sprint CEO Hesse is but one of the keynote stars

We're big fans of the HIMSS keynote sessions, and, as usual, the 2010 edition features some heavy hitters.

The conference kicks off Monday at 8 a.m. with an address from Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel. Hesse, whose resume includes 23 years at AT&T, including as president and CEO of the company's wireless division, will speak about the evolving role of mobile applications in healthcare and why the future of health IT may be in handheld devices.

On Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., Dr. David Blumenthal makes his first appearance at a HIMSS conference since becoming national coordinator for health IT last year. Now, of course, he's Dr. Meaningful Use, the chief policy-maker and head cheerleader for the push toward a nationwide system of interoperable electronic health records.

If you're still around on Thursday--and most of the vendors tend to skip town after the trade show portion of the conference closes on Wednesday--you can catch two fascinating keynote sessions. Atlanta is the home base of CNN, and at 8:30 a.m., the network's senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, will interview forensic accountant Harry Markopolos about Medicare fraud. Markopolos is known for helping to expose the Ponzi scheme of Wall Street robber baron extraordinaire Bernie Madoff, but he also investigates healthcare companies.

HIMSS10 closes with a keynote address at 12:30 p.m. by a true American hero, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, the U.S. Airways pilot who saved 155 lives by landing his crippled aircraft on the Hudson River last year, then getting everyone out of the plane safely. A longtime safety expert, you can be sure Sully will talk about the lessons healthcare can learn from commercial aviation.