Hospital Management Systems Society records

Organized in 1961 as the Hospital Management Systems Society (HMSS), an independent, unincorporated, nonprofit, voluntary association of individuals, HMSS was founded on the thesis that an organized exchange of experience among members and other interested parties could promote a better understanding of the principles underlying hospital management systems and could develop new principles for improving the skills of the person who directs hospital programs and the practitioner who analyzes, designs, or improves hospital systems. The purpose of the Society as stated in the original constitution was “to promote the continual improvement of hospital management systems through organized programs of research, education, and professional practice.”

During the period of 1956 through 1960, hospital management engineering practitioners were seeking an avenue to allow easy exchange of ideas, particularly to encourage discussions of project studies and approaches among them while the AHA focused on marketing the profession to hospital administrators. This difference in approaching the profession stimulated sowing the seed for HMSS.

In collaboration with information and management colleagues at Georgia Tech, including Howard W. Woods, John R. Freeman, A.D. Joseph Emerzian (University of Connecticut), and Pamela M. Hendrix, Dr. Harold E. Smalley designed a questionnaire to test the extent of interest in forming a new society. In May, 1961, this questionnaire was sent to 50 persons known to be involved in hospital management engineering, and favorable responses from 37 practitioners and educators led to the decision to proceed with preliminary plans for a new society. Using the information from the questionnaire responses and from other contacts and sources, ad hoc committees were formed to draft provisions of a constitution.

During October, 1961, a constitution was drafted and circulated for review and comment. The Constitution of the Healthcare Management Systems Society was certified at Society headquarters on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology on November 1, 1961, with a proviso that persons admitted to membership within two months of that date would be considered to be Charter Members. HMSS became Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 1986.