BOSTON – The director of the Center for Connected Health urged an audience of healthcare innovators on Tuesday to continue to innovate even in tough economic times.
"It's really a call to action, said Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, the founder and director of the center, a division of Partners HealthCare in Boston. Kvedar spoke at the center's annual symposium in Boston.
The center's stated mission is to develop and employ remote-monitoring technology, sensors and online communications and intelligence to improve patient adherence, engagement and clinical outcomes. Recently the center received funding from the Microsoft HealthVault Be Well Fund to develop a home-based glucose monitoring system for patients with diabetes.
"We are in an unprecedented economic slowdown," Kvedar said. At such times, he said, most people tend to "hunker down, stick with the status quo."
"My plea to all of you is to continue to innovate," he said. "Each one of us now has to start looking to where we're going to add unique value. All players need to sharpen their focus as the future unfolds. The challenge and the excitement is to pick an area where you can add exceptional value."
Kvedar may have been preaching to the choir. This year's symposium - the fifth annual - drew more than 1,000 attendees, up from 300 the first year and 900 last year. It attracts innovators and aspiring innovators and is also eliciting growing attention, it seems, from the movers and shakers in all facets of healthcare.
Much of the talk at this year's event was about engaging the consumer.
Google co-founder Adam Bosworth, a self-described nerd, spoke about tackling the country's obesity problem with the launch of his new Web-based healthcare company next year. He plans to apply technology to help break what he called the "self-inflicted juggernaut" of skyrocketing healthcare costs.
Consumer empowerment can help, he said: "You make them part of the solution."
Matthew Holt, founder of the Health 2.0 conference, led a panel on social networking for patient communities.
"There's value of openly sharing health information," said panelist Ben Heywood, CEO of PatientsLikeMe, a company whose Web site links patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases.
"We clearly see the Web as an application to engage more richly," said Stead Burwell, CEO of Diabetic Connect, a Web community of people with diabetes.
In her keynote address, Regina Herzlinger, a professor at Harvard Business School, called for an "IT-heavy system" in which the patient and all the members of the provider team are integrated and connected. "I'd be interested in the network focused on me," she said. "My cancer, my depression, my diabetes, my hypertension."
The Center for Connected Health is focused on Herzlinger's concept of better, cheaper healthcare by working on projects that contribute to access, efficiency and quality.
"Most people are proud when they get one right," Kvedar said. "Connected health helps us do all three."
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