HealthCampNash kicks off

I am at HealthCampNash at Lipscomb University in Nashville Tennessee. The organizers have done an impressive job in setting up this think tank event. Every HealthCamp has it's own personality and Nashville seems set to further endorse that fact.

I will be tweeting the event during the day so I am setting up a CoveritLive feed to capture the streams. The Hashtag for the event is #hcn09

A CoverItLive feed for the event is included below.

If you are at the HealthcampNash event or in the area of Lipscomb University come and say hi.

To Change Health Care We Must Put Consumers and Patients At The Centre

I am doing a short presentation at HealthCampNash on Saturday May 30th at 3:30pm. Check out my SlideShare Presentation here:

To Change Health Care We Must Put Consumers and Patients At The Centre

View more PDF documents from Mark Scrimshire.

Countdown to HealthCampNash and HealthCampMd

This Saturday May 30th is HealthCampNash. This will be my first visit to Nashville. I am looking forward to the event. Every HealthCamp has a local personality and it will be fascinating to see how the Nashville event unfolds.

Work is also underway for HealthCampMd which is taking place on Friday June 19th. The Maryland camp represents the first anniversary of this HealthCamp series so lets look at the history of the past year.

The premise of HealthCamp is simple. It started after attending the Web 2.0 Expo in early 2008. At the Expo there was very clear interest in discussing the implications for Health Care through the application of Web 2.0 tools and technologies.

HealthCamp was created to continue that conversation.

The question at the heart of HealthCamp grew out of those discussions at the Expo and the Health 2.0 definition that emerged from a series of blogposts by Dr. Ted Eytan. That definition still strikes a chord today:

Health 2.0 is participatory Healthcare

Enabled by information, software, and community that we collect or create, we the patients can be effective partners in our own healthcare, and we the people can participate in reshaping the health system itself.

The question posed by HealthCamp is this:

How can we transform Health Care on a participatory basis using Social Networking, Open Standards, Open Source and the best that the Web and Mobile Internet has to offer.

The HealthCamp events of the last year started with HealthCampMd on June 14th, 2008 on the Owings Mills campus of the newly instituted Stevenson University.

Following on from this event came HealthCampDc, in Washington DC (September 12th) and HealthCampNy the following week as part of the Web 2.0 Expo. Then came HealthCampSf (October 24th), in San Francisco, as part of Health 2.0 Conference. 2008 was finished off with HealthCamp going international at HealthCampUK (November 10th) in London.

2009 has been just as busy with events being held in :

• HealthCampDc, Washington DC, Friday Feb 27th, 2009
• HealthCampPhila, Philadelphia, PA, March 28, 2009
• HealthCampBoston, Boston, Ma, April 21 2009 as part of the Spring Health 2.0 Conference
• HealthCampSf, San Francisco, March 31-April 3, 2009 as part of the Web 2.0 Expo
• HealthCamp Azerbaijan Baku, Azerbaijan May 23-24th

The second HealthCampUK is also taking place on the same day as HealthCampMd. We are aiming to have a video hook up between the two events. So come along on Friday June 19th and join in an exciting event as HealthCamp enters a new chapter.

HealthCampMd is taking shape. Come and join in

We are a month from HealthCampMd. But it is a busy month ahead before we get to HealthCampMd on Friday June 19th.

HealthCamp is becoming an international movement. One event I can't get to happens next week. That is HealthCamp Azerbaijan which takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan on May 23-24th.

One event I am planning on attending is HealthCampNash which happens in two weeks time, on May 30th. I am looking forward to my first trip to Nashville. This should be another great HealthCamp event. It will be a chance to meet up again with some of the amazing innovators I met at HealthCampBoston, the Health2.0 Accelerator and the Health 2.0 Conference in Boston (Including Chris Parks and the folks at Change:Healthcare).

People are already signing up for HealthCampMd which is taking place on the Owings Mills campus at Stevenson University.

We are planning to make Friday June 19th a very special day in the HealthCamp Calendar. Three HealthCamps are in fact taking place that day:

• HealthCampMd
• HealthCampSanDiego and
• HealthCampUK.

If our plans work out we hope to be broadcasting video from each event and arranging a three-way link up between them.

This is going to be a great way to celebrate the first anniversary of this amazing HealthCamp movement. It is inspiring to see how far HealthCamps have progressed in one short year. It is also fitting that HealthCamp celebrates the first anniversary at Stevenson University. HealthCampMd took place in June 2008 at Stevenson University. It was the first public event to take place there for the former Villa Julie College as it transitioned to a full university. Since then events have been growing as the word spreads. HealthCampPhila in March 2009 saw over 100 people sign up for an event hosted by Jefferson University. HealthCampBoston built on this inertia and had nearly 150 people attend an event hosted and sponsored by Microsoft at their New England Research and Development center.

HealthCamp UK 2009 is gaining a lot of coverage by being part of the UK Department of Health's NHS Innovation Expo, "a unique opportunity to catch up with the best in healthcare innovation from the public, private, voluntary, academic and scientific communities".

The HealthCampSanDiego event is gaining a lot of attention since it was featured on BlogTalk Radio.

If you are a developer and want to know how you can get involved in the HealthCamp movement then please come along to the HealthCampMd event in Owings Mills. I am planning to hold a session to plan the evolution of a central HealthCamp network site. Progress is already being made on that front. SocialText have offered their platform as a home for HealthCamp and the http://healthca.mp domain already points there. The social tools in the latest version of SocialText's platform offer a great base on which to build the on-line healthcamp community. My sincerest thanks go out to Ross Mayfield, Eugene Lee and the SocialText team for their generosity in supporting the HealthCamp movement.

If you want to get involved in HealthCamp then go to http://healthca.mp and register. Join the HealthCamp workspaces. You can help us create a great resource that supports future HealthCamps.

I am also working on some ideas to further enable the HealthCamp movement. I hope to announce some of those plans at HealthCampMd. The June events are a springboard to even greater things happening later in the year. Plans are afoot for events in New York, San Francisco and Toronto.

If you are planning to go to the next Health 2.0 Conference or Health 2.0 Accelerator in October, 2009 in San Francisco then you will also want to plan on attending HealthCampSFBay which is being hosted by Kaiser Permanente in their world renowned innovation center in Oakland, CA on Monday October 5th.

The Mi-Fi is a game changer

Verizon is launching the Novatel Mi-Fi this week. It is a game changing product. I currently have an original iPhone and a MacBook Pro. I have been considering getting a wireless broadband card so that I can access Twitter and Facebook more easily. The Mi-fi changes the choice dramatically.

I use Twitter as a major source for news and to stay in contact with people. However, Twitter's web site is now blocked by the Internet filters at work. Twitter is not the only blacklisted site. Facebook, YouTube and a plethora of video sites are on that list.

Since I spend much of my time in the Baltimore area the new XOHM Wi-Max service is an interesting option. It is a relatively low cost service with no long term contracts to sign. They currently offer a "Pick 2" option which could give me a home wireless broadband modem and a usb modem for $50 per month.

Another option is an AT&T 3G Wireless broadband card that I can tie to my iPhone contract. The cost is $60/month for 5Gb of bandwidth.

Verizon offering the Mi-Fi competes with that same service. $60/month for 5Gb of bandwidth. But I get a portable wi-fi zone. This offers intriguing possibilities. Broadband is not limited to one device. It will work with any Wi-Fi device. This means:

• I might not need to upgrade my iPhone (unless Apple launches a dramatically improved iPhone next month)
• I could Skype from my iPhone via the Mi-Fi to call anyone from anywhere
• I can connect my MacBook Pro to the Mi-Fi by the Wi-Fi link. Connecting via Wi-Fi on a Mac is a breeze.  
• I could replace the memory card in my camera and use Eye-Fi Memory Cardand allow my camera to upload photos to the Internet automatically
• If Apple announces a new iPod TouchI can connect that to the Mi-Fi and use it like an iPhone without needing to sign up for a new AT&T contract.

With the Mi-Fi Verizon doesn't need to sell the iPhone. They could just start bundling the Mi-Fi with an iPod Touchand they have an interesting product offering to compete with AT&T. Would Apple care - Probably not if it means more sales for the iPod Touch.

When Apple finally provides background processing for the iPhone and iPod Touchit will create intriguing possibilities. I could then use an iPod Touchwith a Mi-Fi and a Skype-In phone number and I have an iPhone like device I can carry with me.

Yes, The Mi-Fi really looks like a game changing device.