Warning: shameless self-promotion today—will be back to more thematic ideas next week if my feet and I survive the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference and Circus, which is occurring this entire week in San Francisco. Pretty much the entire healthcare world shows up for this, which means you see old friends and new, as well as people you hoped you might not have to see again. If you wanted to “Occupy Healthcare,” this is the place to do it. In any event, It always an interesting experience full of insight, deal-making, cocktail therapy and blister treatments. So for now, with time somewhat limited for committing deep-ish thoughts to paper, I thought I’d put a plug out there for a few conferences at which I have been fortunate to be invited to speak.
The first is The Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC), which bills itself as the only fully integrated conference to examine the advances and challenges of Personalized Medicine through a practical lens. PMWC brings together the thought-leaders of business, government, healthcare-delivery, research and technology into one information-rich, two-day conference and offers a really interesting agenda looking at the ideas of personalized medicine from a number of angles. The keynote speaker is Brian Druker M.D., Director of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Institute, JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, OHSU, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (apparently an over-achiever). There will be talks from such individuals as Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of Stanford University Hospital & Clinics and Naomi Aronson, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Technology Evaluation Center.
When most people think about personalized medicine, they think of biotech, pharma and genetics. However, healthcare IT and healthcare services are becoming very focused on how to personalize the healthcare experience for consumers through the application of mhealth, big data and targeted care coordination techniques. That’s what I’m going to talk about, as the pharma, biotech and genetics angles are being covered by people far more intelligent than I on such topics. The conference is being held January 23-24, 2012 at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum in San Jose, CA, a very cool spot. I hope to see you there.
Next up is the IBF Health & Wellness Innovation Summit on February 9, 2012. I will do a fireside chat style interview with United HealthGroup’s Executive Vice President of Health Services, Dr. Richard Migliori, about how payers are adopting and adapting to the consumer health movement. In particular we will talk about how payers define “wellness” in the insurance context and what it takes for them to pay for the kind of services that are becoming popularized in the healthcare environment today. Dr. Migliori’s colleague, Dr. Sam Ho, Chief Medical Officer at UnitedHealth Group, recently said to me, “Wellness is motherhood and apple pie but it hasn’t moved the needle on anything yet.” This is my chance to find out what it will take to move the needle for the nation’s largest commercial payer. This conference is co-Located with IBF’s Corporate Venturing and Innovation Partnering Conference, February 6-8; both will take place at the Island Hotel, Newport Beach, CA
On February 24, 2012 I will participate in a panel entitled “Venture Capital: Positioning Healthcare Startups for Success” at the Business of Healthcare Conference at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. The conference is focused on entrepreneurial solutions to our current healthcare system challenges, which is my stock in trade. I always like visiting my alma mater and this will be a good complement to the class I am teaching on the changing healthcare system when the Spring semester starts at Haas in a few weeks.
Last but not least, I will participate in a panel entitled Trailblazing Women Driving Innovation at the Professional Business Women of California Annual Conference (PBWC) to be held at Moscone Center West in San Francisco on May 15, 2012. This is the PBWC’s 23rd annual such conference and the women I have met who are organizing it are super dynamic and amazingly accomplished. Keynotes include the Secretary General of the Council of World Women Leaders, Laura Liswood, and Bridget van Kralingen, General Manager of IBM North America. I am delighted to be included among such a noteworthy group of women.
I know what you’re thinking: does this woman every stop talking? Apparently not. I hope to see some of you at some of these events and I will report on the JP Morgan Conference next time!
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