Eric Topol’s keynote at HIMSS13, a massive health IT event, was a tsunami of ideas and visions for the future of health care. I wasn’t there, so I salvaged what washed up on my shore as a Storify.
Why? Because I’m an internet geologist. I look for early warning signs of possible futures and Topol was reeling them out, one after the other. He described the possible trajectory of trends we are tracking every day at the Pew Research Center: mobile, social, DIY health. It’s not reality for everyone, but it’s reality for some — and that’s exactly what we look for when we’re mapping our research agenda. What’s now and what’s next.
If you were there, what was the most surprising or exciting thing he mentioned? If you’re just tuning in and seeing the Storify, what jumps out at you as the most or least likely trend?
For over a year I’ve been the accidental manager of a community garden. All I did — I swear — is point out an open plot of land and people started pitching in, planting, asking friends to join them. All of a sudden we’d transformed a bare patch into something beautiful.
I thought for sure that interest would wane. I’d be left with a lovely little garden to tend on my own and I’d probably let it go after a while. But new people kept showing up to help. I frankly wasn’t ready but they came in, planted new flowers, and invited their friends to come over. They expanded the original plot and just kept going.
Based on that conversation, I became a founding member of a committee of people working to create a new Indicator/Index for Happiness called The H(app)athon Project. I hope you’ll check out these slides and consider signing up for the newsletter/survey. Stay tuned for details about an event in NYC on March 20, 2013. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Two high-tech health events were held last week — an East Coast-West Coast data-driven smackdown. I chose East, but my eyes kept straying West, and I am very thankful that the organizers for both are archiving the videos online.
Here are a couple of stand-outs, first from Living By Numbers in New York City:
Jennifer Kurkoski and Brian Welle talked about how Google engages in behavioral design to help people avoid gaining weight even as they are surrounded by delicious food. Obvious tip: use smaller plates and you’ll eat less. Non-obvious tip: don’t trick people, tell them what you’re doing and bring them into the game you’re playing.
Meantime, in San Francisco, Alexandra Drane of Eliza Corp. regaled Strata Rx with her insights about how caregiving and stress might be even more serious health threats than diabetes and high blood pressure:
I loved how both of these presentations focused on the reality of people’s lives. That’s where I focus my energy and time. As I said at Medicine X (and plan to say at Connected Health): the best way to anticipate the future is to understand – and respect – what people are doing today.
If you see other summaries of these events — or the other excellent meetings which took place last week — please post them in the comments (or let me know on Twitter).
Stanford Medicine X ended on Sunday after three (very) full days. Larry Chu deserves much of the credit for what I like about Medicine X, an “academic conference designed for everyone.”
E-patients made up 10% of the audience and I appreciated their participation on stage, at the microphones, and on Twitter. There were also clinicians, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and artists to name just a few of the other groups represented.
I will be writing more about the conference and what I learned over the next few days, but I wanted to share two images: Continue reading →
Before you read this post, think of a time when you had a crush on someone. Think about that swirl of emotions, the highs and the lows. That’s where I was a couple weeks ago, except it wasn’t about a person.
I fell hard for Watson, IBM’s hot new outboard brain. I’d heard he was smart, kind of a know-it-all, but also trainable, a good listener, and maybe the answer to people’s prayers and complaints about the rising flood of information.
Serendipity brought me two opportunities this week to present Pew Internet’s data on communities of color and young people, particularly as it relates to health. On Wednesday I was a guest of the Federal HIV/AIDS Web Council and on Thursday I spoke at a meeting convened by CommonHealth ACTION. I’ll share some insights I picked up at each event along with the data I presented.
My story in both settings was essentially the same:
The most important source of information for people making a day-to-day health decision, in many cases, is not a website, or even a clinician, but another person who shares the same condition. As mobile, social tools spread throughout the population, people are connecting with each other. Why not harness those tools for health? Continue reading →
Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project, presented this wonderful overview of the Project’s health findings at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, CA, on January 12.
Another summary of the Project’s health research is the following tip sheet, compiled by yours truly. I plan to keep it updated, so bookmark Pew Internet: Health on pewinternet.org. Continue reading →
We are deep into the fall conference season. One of my favorite trends is the increasing rate of inclusion of patients and caregivers at health care events, on stage or in the audience. The California HealthCare Foundation was a pioneer in this regard. Patients 2.0, an off-shoot of Health 2.0, and e-Patient Connections represent a strong tradition of inclusion of consumers on stage and off. And the recent Medicine 2.0’11 at Stanford set a new high-water mark of e-patient involvement, in my opinion, thanks to the leadership of Larry Chu.
On October 20-21 in Boston, the Connected Health Symposium will present the latest opportunity to attend a fantastic health care innovation conference. If you’re interested, click to view the PDF invitation from Joe Ternullo, the organizing chair of the event. Essentially, patients and caregivers who would like a free pass should send Joe an email: jternullo (at) partners.org. Continue reading →
The newest material is in the section entitled, “Getting Past the Early-Adopter Stage” — roadblocks, opportunities, and beacons for change (patient leaders, clinician leaders, and technology leaders). Not surprisingly, the NIH audience members suggested adding “policy leaders” to that lineup. It was an extraordinarily good discussion — I’ll post a link to the video when it’s live.
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I’ll speak tomorrow at the National Institutes of Health as part of their Mind the Gap lecture series which “explores a wide range of issues at the intersection of research, evidence, and clinical practice—especially areas in which conventional wisdom may lead us astray.”
You can watch the webcast starting at 10am Eastern U.S. time. If you miss it, the video will be archived and I plan to post the text of my remarks (my slides are already up on pewinternet.org). Continue reading →
