Lisa Rotenstein
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
PGY-2 in
Internal Medicine
Connecting at Connected Health 2018
I recently had the chance to attend the 2018 Connected
Health Conference in Boston. It’s the main event of the year for Boston techies
interested in health. First and foremost, I enjoyed learning about the wide
swath of technologies being developed to tackle almost every issue we have in
delivery of modern healthcare – inability to access or own records, chronic
disease management, care convenience, etc. It was a pleasure to meet
entrepreneurs putting forth diverse solutions to these challenges.
One of the conference’s most memorable sessions was led by
BWH iHub speakers, including Jose Elias, Brian Mullen, and Mark Zhang. This
trio discussed what it’s like to undertake innovation in an academic medical
center, including how internal innovation groups can help clinicians bridge
their ideas with those of technical experts who are building solutions. I also particularly enjoyed a panel on the
“Uber Primary Care Experience” from entrepreneurs building non-traditional,
tech-enabled primary care systems. Their reflections emphasized how to use
technology to support primary care rather than building care around technology,
although the latter often happens because of disconnects between tech companies
and healthcare systems
My biggest takeaway from the conference had to do with the
diverse opportunities for innovating outside of the EHR, particularly in terms
of patient-facing technologies. While much of my exposure to technology in
training has centered on Epic, the Connected Health Conference offered a vision
of how we can move past this to apps, telemedicine, and connected wearables
that enhance the doctor-patient relationship and accordingly, outcomes. The
conference specifically exposed me to some app-based technologies that I can
look towards implementing in my own primary care practice in the future. For
example, Bradley Crotty’s group at the Medical College of Wisconsin uses an
interesting application called Patient Wisdom, which allows patients to share
stories about themselves and set an agenda for their next visit. Providers then
access this information, enhancing their visits. The FeatForward mobile
application (which encourages patients to increase physical activity) is well
accepted by patients and its use is associated with weight loss and decreased
cardiometabolic risk. I can see myself using similar applications in my own
practice and have connected with the researchers behind this work.
Attending the conference furthermore allowed me to connect
with both new and old contacts in health technology and strengthen mentoring
relationships. Post conference, I have connected with important health
technology figures including Adam Landman and Rushika Fernandopulle, while
meeting new contacts in the vendor world who have implemented patient messaging
and wearable applications across diverse health systems.
This conference strongly met my expectations and
broadened my horizons of how I can collaborate with industry in the future to
achieve healthcare improvement goals related to chronic disease management, and
patient and physician engagement.
No comments:
Post a Comment