Health 2.0 Fall 2011

I attended Health 2.0 in San Francisco this week, and participated in the new Health Law 2.0 pre-conference, moderating a lively panel discussion about reviews posted on listings and ratings websites, featuring attorneys and an entrepreneur.

Please take a look at the posts I've written about the conference, here at HealthBlawg, and on HealthWorks Collective:

Health 2.0 San Francisco, September 2011, "Son et Lumiere"

"This post comes to you from the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco.  The main conference kicks off today, but it has been preceded by a week of code-a-thons and a variety of other events, including HealthCamp and the four-track pre-conference yesterday (Health Law 2.0, Patients 2.0, Doctors 2.0, Employers 2.0).  I moderated one of the Health Law 2.0 panels, and shook up some of my brothers and sisters at the bar by wearing my new Regina Holliday jacket – I've joined the Walking Gallery.  (Follow the links, including the walking gallery back story, to learn more about who Regina is, and what this means.) …"  (Read more on the Health 2.0 pre-conferences.)

Health 2.0 Kicks Off in San Francisco

"Todd Park, the HHS CTO, is a vigorous champion of data liberation.  He has moved the government to open its vast repositories of data (e.g. Medicare claims data) to sharing with the public to solve health care problems.  Data liberation is one of the watchwords of the participatory medicine movement, and is a goal that will be reached more easily through the proliferation of online tools that will facilitate health information exchange.  While we would hope that, in the future, this would be a core functionality of interoperable EHRs, It seems we just aren’t there yet.  Meanwhile, however, there are Health 2.0 companies ready to bridge the gap, and ensure that data from whatever source regarding an individual patient will be available to her clinicians…."  (Read even more on the Health 2.0 pre-conferences.)

Health 2.0 – Focus on High Quality, Low Cost & Connectivity

"The health care payor and provider worlds are concerned with access, cost and quality.  The federal government adds a population health gloss, and calls it the Triple Aim – better care for individuals, better health for populations, at reduced per-capita costs.  Those fundamental drivers are now having a clearer effect on the Health 2.0 ecosystem.  The demos and discussions I’ve observed thus far at this year’s conference are more consistently focused on addressing these issues than they have been in the past.  Early-stage, and more established, companies’ products are also notable in that they are focused on connectivity in a broader sense than before – whether that’s connectivity for data, so that sensors can share data with your personal tracking software, your doctor or your community, or connectivity for individuals, who can use online social tools to improve their own health status through online interactions in a number of different ways…." (Read more on Health 2.0 Day 1.) 

       Health 2.0 Conference: Data Liquidity Can Improve Care and Reduce Cost

"On the last day of Health 2.0, the key takeaway was this: data liquidity can improve health care and health status, and reduce cost.  Hey, we knew this already; the cool thing about hearing this message at Health 2.0 is that you get to hear it (1) while seeing the tools that will actually create that data liquidity that are ready for prime time, or almost ready for prime time and (2) from federal officials who are visibly excited about this stuff…." (Read more on Health 2.0 Day 2.)

In addition, please take a look at the Health 2.0 Fall 2011 vlog with David Harlow, featuring 18 mini-interviews on Health 2.0 and "data liberation" with some of your favorite Health 2.0 and ONC figures — including Matthew Holt, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Farzad Mostashari and Lygeia Ricciardi – and some new faces as well.

The conference was jam-packed, and of course there were many more worthwhile demos and presentations that I was not able to include in these brief collections of highlights.  I hope to see more of you at the next conference.

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting