Five years ago, Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya bravely turned over their main stage to Alexandra Drane and a posse of thinkers, doers, and builders working on removing the real barriers to good health — all the stuff that nobody wants to talk about but which we know is at the center of people’s lives. Alex called […]
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Who is ready to stand naked in front of the mirror of data?
In this talk at the Quantified Self Public Health symposium, I argue that we must respect the context of people’s lives while designing health interventions, tools, and research projects. Not everyone is ready to stand naked in front of the bright light of numbers on a screen. Let’s be gentle in our approach, especially to […]
I’m leaving Pew Research
Believe it or not, 14 years ago, the idea of using the internet for health was a novel concept. That’s when Pew Internet published its first report about the social impact of the internet on health and health care, raising eyebrows across the U.S. Our data was cited in mainstream news outlets, in JAMA, and, […]
Recognizing the value of data
In 1999, when I was the editor of USNews.com, the dot-com boom was in full swing. Money seemed to be gushing out of the Bay Area and some sharpies at USNews saw an opportunity to cash in. They proposed slicing out the most marketable piece of the website — the education franchise — and selling […]
How I choose which conferences to attend
I wrote this as a comment last year in response to a question about why Medicine X was so magical. I’m elevating it to a post thanks to encouragement from E-patient Dave and because I’d love to hear from other people about how they choose events to attend. 5 criteria I consider when I receive […]
Keeping it real
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 […]
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