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Health 2.0 Day 2: Highlights and Musings

Day two at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco was just as busy as the first -full of amazing ideas and inspiration.

The day began with Jonathan Bush of Athena Health being interviewed by Chris Lawton of the Wall Street Journal. I was struck by Jonathan's blunt appraisal of the problems in the healthcare system. He was especially aware of the plight of the physician and how to incent them to adopt change (money). While I agree that certain things that cost money will require some financial inducement, I also believe that physicians will ultimately do what is in the best interest of their patients.

There was a great panel on various health technology initiatives from around the world. There is an understanding that mobile apps are the key to improving health and access to healthcare in underdeveloped countries. Deb Levine of ISIS showed off some pretty cool apps for disease prevention (HIV) using SMS (everyone's phone was beeping). James Mathews of Sage Software is one of the best moderators that I have seen - his calm demeanor and extremely insightful commentary was excellent.

There was a strange, but entertaining period where Matthew Holt dared to dress in drag and go through the process of testing a number of 'Consumer Tools' from H20. From genetic testing (23andMe) to apps that check for generic drug equivalents, estimate your savings, and even call the doctor to change the prescription, there are all sorts of fun toys for us to play with. Adam Bosworth unveiled Keas to the world today and it looks like a Consumer Decision Support Tool. It takes in health data from Microsoft Health Vault or Google Health and helps the consumer build a health plan while forecasting outcomes from specific diet, exercise, and other lifestyle changes. It was a bit underwhelming but I suspect we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The breakout sessions I attended were both of the Search Panels. This is a particular interest of mine for a number of reasons. First, I am tired of my patients coming to me after having searched Google and seen horrible outcomes from similar illnesses or diseases. I want to be able to suggest a place for them to go and get solid information. Two sessions exhibited a variety of companies with several different approaches to search. Both the panels were expertly led by my favorite moderator Craig Stoltz of Web 2.0...Really?

While I am curious about Organized Wisdom's ability to scale their 'Human Powered Search' as the number of topics continuously increases, there is an inherent value in having data screened and vetted by people. Rishi Sikka presented Praxeon's MyDailyApple beautifully - their search engine taps into your PHR and returns a true 'Personalized' result. Besides the two clinician focused searches (which I will discuss at another time), community was a topic of contention. Most of the engines return patient social networks or communities in their results. Ron Gutman of Wellsphere had the most impassioned response to this as he discussed how 'HealthCare' required both 'Health', which is the medical/science and 'Care' which is the support, the shoulder to cry on, and the community that cares - He had me believing.

Pharma was mysteriously absent from the "Pharma and Health 2.0" Panel.

The final panel included some true visionaries. Dr. Rob Kolodner, Dr. David Kibbe, David Lansky, and Dr. Alan Greene all spoke about the healthcare system and how we might help invoke change. They all agreed that the current system is broken and that it must change. Kibbe bemoaned the Republicans for a bit and then said that we, as physicians, will ultimately do what our patients want us to, so asked everyone to talk to their doctors, ask them about email, thank them if they provide special services, and they will change their ways - I agree wholeheartedly.

This was an amazing conference. I met many new people, made new friends, and look forward to our next opportunity to get together.

Jason Bhan, MD Co-Founder, Ozmosis