This is a live blog post from the mHealth Summit. The summit is taking place from December 5-7th at the Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, MD.
This is a live blog post, as such the notes are made in real time and posted with minimal editing. I am sharing these via Facebook, Twitter and my blog to help others get a snapshot of the activities at the conference. You can follow the tweet stream at #MHS11 or follow the mHealth Summit's twitter account @mhealthsummit.
Monday, December 5, 2011
9:45–10:15 AM — Opening Keynote
 | Secretary U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | |
 | Vice Chairman West Wireless Health Institute | |
First the introductions:
Scott Campbell - Exec Director & CEO - Foundation for the National Institutes of Health kicks off the Summit.
Around 3,000 attendees in 2011 growing 25% from last year.
We need to learn from the mFinance community - they are further along in developing solutions than Health Care.
Rosemary Nelson - mHIMSS Taskforce Chair of HIMSS. mHIMSS is the mobile offshoot of HIMSS.
Patricia Mecheal, Ph D. - Executive Director - mHealth Alliance -- focusing internationally on the poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.
Robert Kaplan, Director - OBSSR - National Institutes of Health
Now on to the key notes….
Kathleen Sibelius - Secretary, US Dept of Health and Human Services (who has her talk on her iPad)
Almost every American has a cell phone and smartphones represent more than 50% of cell phones. The iTunes store alone has 12,000 apps related to health.
What is exciting is the rate of innovation in an area (Health Care) which has been traditionally sedentary.
When innovation is slow so is improvement.
Rapidly rising health care costs are imposing increasing burdens on families, employers and Government.
We need information. Incomplete information about patients. Information Deficit is being addressed through the push for Health IT.
Office based doctors have grown in EMR use from 17% to 34% in less than two years.
Mobile Health is the next logical extension. Cellphones are an incredible tool for engaging consumers in our own health.
iTriage and Pillbox gets a shout out as innovative solutions to help patients and providers.
What can the Administration do to promote innovation. The Government role is to provide research. Act as a catalyst.
Adoption of EMRs had not changed in many years to the Recovery Act set out to - set Standards for interoperable systems, Create Regional Extension Centers help small practices adopt, Health Information Exchanges to help interoperability.
Recognized that it wasn't good enough to just dump paper in to electronic form. Meaningful Use emerged from this. We can now measure progress.
Government data was locked up and difficult to obtain. HealthData.gov was created to make the data accessible.
Shining a spotlight on health problems. 1 in 5 students in college report some sexual assault during their college years. Why not use technology to protect themselves. Apps Against Abuse: Circle of 6 and onWatch were the winners.
TXT4Health from InfieldHealth also got a shout out.
Innovations are being per sued around Care Transitions to reduce hospital readmissions.
Challenge 1: Support all innovations in Health Care - not just mhealth solutions.
Challenge 2: Help consumers understand that applications and data for consumers are safe and privacy is maintained.
We are heading for a future where we each take care of our health.
There are major opportunities to export technology as developing countries grow.
Scott Ratzan, MD, MPA - VP - Global Health - Johnson & Johnson
TXT4BABY - 71% of people getting text messages are seeking advice from physicians.
TXT4BABY is expanding to Russia.
0.5M babies die in first year of life. We need to change that.
Only 10 years ago less then half the wor;d's population had ever made a phone call. Today over 5B people in a 7B world population now own a cellphone.
Eric Topol, MD - West Wireless Health - The Creative Destruction of Medicine
@EricTopolKairos - The supreme - most opportune moment in history.
Digital World and the Medical Cocoon. They are starting to converge.
We are now talking about "Digitizing Man".
We have a new species - Homo Distractus
Joseph Schumpeter - Creative Destruction - now being applied to medicine.
Johns Hopkins has announced it is closing it's medical library and going digital. This is the harbinger of change.
Eric gave a number of examples from FitBit
AliveCor was demoed with the new Credit Card reader that can do ECG on your iPhone.
Skin Scan can snap a skin lesion and have it diagnosed remotely.
CellScope converts a cellphone to a microscope.
We are moving to a lab on a chip.
EyeNetra.com for Refractive Assessment in eye tests.
Sensimed - Triggerfish monitors eye pressure.
Qualcomm has announced 2net - a wireless health ecosystem
The Steve Jobs Autobiography looking at the future thought the biggest innovation of 21st century will be the intersection of medicine and technology.
We are entering the era of genomics sequencing. Eric demonstrated a handheld DNA Sequencer that could assess whether a patient would respond to Plavix.
The stethoscope is an icon of medicine. Why listen to a heart when you can see an ultrasound image using a portable scanner
There is now a technology to detect cracks in an artery. Using nano technology. Embedded nano sensors
Eric has an ebook on "The Creative Destruction of Medicine"
((tag: mHealth, mHealth Summit, Mobile))
