GlobalMed at ATA 2012 – Update

The advance team flew into San Jose this morning, and my first impression is I like San Jose.  I thought the term, Silicon Valley, was a metaphor, but it is an actual valley surrounded by mountains. 

The advance team flew into San Jose this morning, and my first impression is I like San Jose.  I thought the term, Silicon Valley, was a metaphor, but it is an actual valley surrounded by mountains. 

The Convention Center is downtown, a couple of blocks from our hotel.  There’s a nice park in the center of downtown that encourages you to walk around.  The city is expanding the Convention Center, and the new area will open next year.  Good thing, because the Expo Hall, at 143,000 square feet is smaller than the Tampa Convention Center, the 600,000 square foot home of ATA 2011, and tiny compared to the one-point-three million square foot Henry Gonzales Center in San Antonio which was the site of ATA 2010.  And yet, the ATA has jammed about 20% more vendors into this year’s show.

This is the first time I’ve seen the hall before workers begin setting up all the booths.  It will be interesting to see the place transformed into a visitor friendly place.  Workers began putting our new two-story booth in place about an hour ago.  We expect them to have most of it up by late this afternoon.

I ran into Gary Capistrant, the ATA’s Senior Director of Public Policy, in the empty lobby as we were registering for the tradeshow and getting our badges. Gary has been working on generating support for Senator Tom Udall’s proposed bill that would create a tandem medical license.  If approved, the bill would remove one major barrier to doing telemedicine across state lines.