Hospitals, Pharma, Startups

Vote early and often for these 5 healthcare panels running for a slot at SXSW

This is the year for health at SXSW Interactive. It’s not just an Internet geek […]


This is the year for health at SXSW Interactive. It’s not just an Internet geek fest, app launch opportunity and excuse to escape the gray of winter in sunny Austin any more. Now you can get all that, plus a genomics data-mining primer, quantified self-how-tos and ideas on how to use big data to create small changes.

Everyone wants to be there: There are 97 panel submissions that you can vote on. Public votes are considered along with input from the SXSW Advisory Board and the SXSW staff. The panel picker closes today, so go vote now (yes, you have to register).

Humana and Aetna have both pitched a panel. Kaiser Permanente Innovation Consultancy and Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation want us to follow the patient.

Health 2.0 has pitched a panel about sensors that includes Indu Subaiya of Health 2.0 on a panel with people from Intel, Sickle Reciprocal Labs and Greylock.

Leslie Ziegler from Rock Health wants to talk about the quantified self. Sandbox Industries — parent company of Health Box — is on a panel about health plan innovation. Startup Health has partnered with Wired on Beg, Borrow and Steal.

I voted for many panels, but these are my top five, in no particular order.

1. Stem Cell Technology: Transforming Drug Discovery — Susan Solomon of the The New York Stem Cell Foundation will discuss how stem cells can allow us to model a “disease in a dish” and develop drugs and treatments.

2. Unlikely Allies: Marketing and Legal Unite! Fostering innovation within highly regulated industries like pharmaceutical marketing and financial services is a huge challenge. In this panel, we bring together people who’ve cracked the code on innovating in highly regulated environments. From building collaborative workshops to setting new industry standards to cross-training teams, this group has introduced bold new ways to close the divide.

3. EMS: Emergencies Mitigated Socially — This panel will answer these questions: What is necessary to make a successful hyper-local response to a large-scale incident? What role can social media play in improving EMS response and outcomes for small-scale or even single patient emergencies? Is a cardiac arrest an opportunity for a crowdsourced solution?

4. Out With the Old: Disrupting the Home Care Market — Francine Hardaway of Stealthmode Partners, Jill Gilbert and Geoffrey Clapp want to discuss the real ROI of home care compared to nursing homes and hospitals, and the underserved and untapped parts of the home care industry.

5. Mobile’s Unmentionables — The coupling of mobile to sexual health, mental health and addiction seems to have eluded the tech community. The opportunity is there, but the innovation is lacking. This session will address what is being done and assess the potential of mobile to be more than a repository for personal secrets, instead to become a source of healing and purpose.

Reading the panel proposals is a good way to get ideas about how to craft your own business pitch. Most of the proposals have videos and some use Prezi — an online, much more elegant improvement on Powerpoint. Check out the Prezi for the panel Big Data for Your Soul from Haven Thompson at Razorfish, or the one about the consumer health revolution from Les McPhearson, senior director of business innovation at Florida Blue.

Veronica Combs

Veronica is an independent journalist and communications strategist. For more than 10 years, she has covered health and healthcare with a focus on innovation and patient engagement. Most recently she managed strategic partnerships and communications for AIR Louisville, a digital health project focused on asthma. The team recruited 7 employer partners, enrolled 1,100 participants and collected more than 250,000 data points about rescue inhaler use. Veronica has worked for startups for almost 20 years doing everything from launching blogs, newsletters and patient communities to recruiting speakers, moderating panel conversations and developing new products. You can reach her on Twitter @vmcombs.

Shares0
Shares0