Health IT has changed plenty in the 15 years I have been covering this industry. But when 45,000 people — including a couple of MedCity News correspondents — descend on Las Vegas at the end of next month for the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference, they can be sure that one longstanding tradition will still be there: booth babes.
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Yep, some vendors still apparently think that filling their displays with attractive women will result in increased sales. This may have been true in the past, when health IT was mostly male, but it’s been my experience in recent years that the HIMSS audience has diversified, and now the attendance pool is at least 40 percent female, if not more.
And yet, this ad popped up on Craigslist on Monday.
The person who discovered this, HIStalk writer and #HITchicks founder Jennifer Dennard, also pointed out the sexism in the language. “Why ‘Girl?’ Why not ‘Person’ or at least ‘Woman?'” Dennard tweeted.
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Good question.
My colleague, Meghana Keshavan, pointed out that the sexism at the recent J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, drawing together venture capitalists, was, “Bad, but not THAT bad,” compared to what she had seen in other industries. And she estimated that the male/female ratio at J.P. Morgan was at least 80/20.
HIMSS draws far more women than that, which makes the choice to hire booth babes increasingly curious with each passing year. At least at HIMSS16, the “booth girl” being hired here can dress business casual.
A few years back, when the game show “Deal Or No Deal” was big, NextGen Healthcare Information Systems had a team of maybe a half-dozen lookalike brunettes in little black dresses.
I, like most men, enjoy looking at beautiful women. But this is happening in Las Vegas. There’s plenty of eye candy to be found for everybody outside the convention center. We can do without it on the show floor.
Besides, has a booth babe ever helped a health IT vendor close a sale?
Photo: Twitter user Jessica Kahn
