My wonderful colleague (and Health 2.0’s Co-Chairman & CEO) Indu Subaiya has literally just come off stage in Austin, Texas where the annual South by SouthWest Conference has for the first time had a health track. Indu moderated a panel that included Aman Bhandari from HHS, Gilles Frydman from ACOR, Roni Zeiger from Google & Jamie Heywood from PatientsLikeMe. Judging by the Tweetstream and by this review on OpenSource.com from RedHat’s Ruth Suehle, the panel was a total smash. That’s not of course a total accident! Every one of those panelists and many others (like Jane Sarasohn-Kahn who’s panel is also today) are regulars at Health 2.0, and in some way Indu was taking SXSW a taste of the best of the Health 2.0 Conference. But the fact that the techie crowd at SXSW were lining up to get in is great news.
We desperately need more innovators to come into health care. We’ve been working with the whole Health 2.0 community to do that. Last year we introduced the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge, and this year we’re expanding it. Now other mainstream technology gatherings like SXSW and OSCON are helping spread the word. It’s heartening to read about people who are just discovering the amazing work of PatientsLikeMe, and in some ways it’s amazing that more people don’t know about this sector. But the time really has come to put America’s technology entrepreneurship to work in the heart of health care, and move it in from the edges.
And of course if you want to be ahead of the curve you should be at the Health 2.0 Spring Fling in San Diego in 8 days time!
Meanwhile, here are the latest news bites from our sister blog Health 2.0 News, including Teladoc & Aetna, Vitals buying Healthleap and more.
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