HIMSS Annual Conference Peer Reviewer Toolkit

Program Proposal Review Process

Step I – Review

• The Annual Conference Education Committee members will be assigned a topic area(s) for oversight responsibility and to act as liaisons with the Reviewer Panels.
• HIMSS staff solicits Reviewer volunteers from the membership
• Reviewers must be approved by the ACEC
• Reviewers are assigned to a topic category based on their area of expertise.
• Reviewers are responsible for reading all the proposal forms (approx 2 pages long) that are assigned to them in their area of expertise.

Step 2 – Score
Reviewers receive assignments and instructions from HIMSS staff on the review process. Proposals are available for review via the web with a designated URL address. The amount of proposals for each reviewer will vary depending on the number of proposals submitted and the number of reviewers for each topic area.

• After reading the proposals, Reviewers complete an on-line score-sheet for each proposal.
• If there is a discrepancy of the audience type, classification level, session format, etc. that the author listed, reviewers note this in the comments.
• Reviewers have the option of printing all assigned proposals/score-sheets and to work offline.
• Once the review process is completed, all the data must be entered online.
• Prior HIMSS speaker evaluation data is provided for historical ratings on speakers, and should be used as an additional basis for review.
• Speakers who receive an evaluation of 3.5 or lower on their presentation at a prior HIMSS conference, will not be invited back unless they can document the following:
• They have completed a professional speaking skills program
• They have received a higher rating for speaking at a national conference of another organization
• Reviewers are asked to record constructive comments on the score-sheet. These are made available to the proposal submitter, other Reviewers and the ACEC members to facilitate the analysis and ranking of proposals.

Step 3 – Recommend

• HIMSS assimilates all reviewer data and ranks scores from highest to lowest in an electronic summary report.
• The summary reports are available on the web site at another assigned URL address.
• The Reviewers compare the results and make recommendations to the ACEC Topic Coordinator for sessions within their topic category. (This is done via emails and conference calls.)
• The ACEC Topic Coordinator schedules a conference call in June to review all proposals and their scores with the other reviewers in that topic category.
• As a result of the call, they make a recommendation to the ACEC for consideration at their Summer meeting.
• The ACEC have a face-to-face meeting, usually at the beginning of August, each year where they review recommendations forwarded to them and make a final selection on sessions.
• Each ACEC member provides a report on the proposals they have selected within their assigned topic category.
• All proposals are reviewed, made available for discussion, and then voted on for acceptance.
• The committee follows parliamentary procedure.
• Following the ACEC meeting, HIMSS staff review and process letter of invitation to all accepted speakers.
• Committee Members are instructed not to issue invitations to speakers without the permission of HIMSS.
• After the ACEC meeting, accepted proposal selections are returned to each Reviewer group for their information.

Step 4 – Mentor

• This phase begins after the ACEC and reviewers have selected the sessions.
• Accepted primary presenters for each session are asked to submit their power-point slides
• Reviewers review the content and make suggestions for improvement (if needed).

Step 5 – Moderate/Evaluate

• The ACEC and Reviewers are asked to moderate session(s) they have worked on and to evaluate them at the conference (conference attendance by reviewers in not mandatory).