Harvard Medical School

Boston, MA, USA

Medicine 2.0 is the most important academic conference in eHealth. The accompanying journal - the Journal of Medical Internet Research - is the most influential journal in eHealth (IF 4.4). The conference at Harvard, which in co-ordinance with the quality of research presented at the two, was not to be missed by any expert in this domain.

BUSINESS MODELING IN eHEALTH

Medicine 2.0 is one of the key conferences in the eHealth domain. Its full name was The 5th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps, and Internet/Web 2.0 in Health and Medicine. This year it was held at The Joseph B. Martin conference Center at Harvard Medical School. I was presenting the research on the cost-effectiveness of telehealth.

In the words of its founder, Gunther Eyesenbach, MD MPH FACMI: “From its modest beginning in Toronto five years ago, the Medicine 2.0 congress (and the Medicine 2.0 network) has grown tremendously year over year, with now almost 500 attendees in Boston and over 3,000 members in social network, which consists of past and present speakers and participants. This growth is, of course, a testimony to the enormous and increasing importance of participatory, open and collaborative approaches supported by emerging technologies in medicine – which is exactly the topic of Medicine 2.0”.

I have attended as many sessions as possible. There were three concurrent tracks and I was not always happy with my pick. The quality, and usefulness, of the presentations, varied. The format ranged from lectures to panels, posters to oral presentations, elevator pitches to networking sessions. Professor Bert Vrijhoef directed me towards the presentation of Jobke Wentzel, a Ph.D. student at the University of Twente. The session was packed and Jobke gave a speech on Business modeling in eHealth (pictured above).

I especially enjoyed the start-up pitches to the Expert Panel presided by Joseph Kvedar. One of the start-ups that caught my attention was iDoc24, the first iOS app that connected a user’s iTunes account with the app’s purchasing module (omitting the necessity to pay with your credit card) and thus solving rather elegantly the money-flow problem. Also, one of the ideas that came up was about using public data from Twitter to address public health issues. At one of the presentations, a researcher from the University of Limerick was able to pull a stunning amount of data (more than two million entries on gender, age, geography, activity, etc.) for the surveillance of physical exercise. Social networks as a source of big data - an idea worth exploring.

POSTER PRESENTATION OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

I was there to give a poster presentation of “An Overview of Cost-Effectiveness of Telehealth interventions for Chronic Heart Failure Patients”. The presentation went great. I wasn't expecting that much interest as it was only a literature review. I had 7 or 8 visitors that engaged me in lengthy conversations (maybe because of the Philips brand, I wouldn't say it was because of the suit ;).

Adjacent to my poster was one by Professor Jacob K. Sont from LUMC, Department of Medical Decision Making. He was presenting an internet-based self-management consisting of monitoring asthma at home using the asthma control questionnaire, web-based treatment advice, online education, and remote web communications. I also had conversations with some of the guys trying to make it out there: Evelio Perea Borobio, the founder of i-xplore myhealth, a platform for education in a hospital setting, 2) Matic Meglic, founder of activis, a platform that improves patients’ adherence and 3) Tayla Miron-Shatz, a co-founder of CureMyWay, personalized adherence solution company. They all provided fresh solutions for known problems. 

The conference was closed by John DeBronkart, nicknamed e-patient Dave. He gave a very emotional and moving presentation on why what we do in e-Health matters. He is an advocate for patient rights, foremost for patient access to their data. Much has happened since Dave first blogged about his unsuccessful attempt at getting a grasp on his data. Massive federal regulations have been developed in the US for Meaningful Use, billions of dollars are being rolled out to implement EMRs, and HIE, and patients/consumers are becoming newly conscious of health data issues. 

Medicine 2.0 was once again a valuable mix of presentations, networking, and learning opportunities. The photostream from the conference can be found here.