Digital Health Futurist

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Medical Futurist Dr. Bertalan Meskó

February 3, 2015 Janet Kennedy Get Social Health, Podcast 00:40:09 2 Comments

Dr. Bertalan Meskó is a digital renaissance man for healthcare. He is an author, TEDx speaker, teacher, consultant, and medical futurist. We had a wide ranging conversation about the future of medicine and the need for all medical professionals to be digitally literate. In addition to his newly published book, “The Future of Medicine,” Dr. Meskó shared his personal story of how he became a medical doctor, a PhD in genomics but still felt he had to honor “the geek” inside and embrace a career he designed for himself as a medical futurist. Listen to the episode of catch the highlights of the podcast at the time stamps below.

Future of Medicine ebook cover00:00 Introduction
00:35 Meet Dr. Bertalan Meskó
02:00 It’s about the conversation, not the platform
02:20 Building relationships
03:40 Be precise in social media
04:30 You can’t hide in the internet
06:45 The Guide to the Future of Medicine
08:55 Dr. Bertalan’s story
09:30 Created a profession as a medical futurist
11:20 Webcina.com
14:16 themedicalfuturist.com
16:50 “I think like a geek about improving healthcare”
19:20 How do we talk about a digital future when basic health needs aren’t met in third world countries?
22:13 What are people scared of about the future of medicine?
25:45 Break down the ivory tower of medicine
27:26 “Quantified Self”
37:07 Taking responsibility for your own health

38:50 Social Media Tip: Scott Bornkessel, Online Marketing Director for ABB

Dr. Meskó’s LinkedIn profile
Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health.

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Entrepreneurs Hacking Healthcare

September 9, 2014 Janet Kennedy Get Social Health, Podcast 00:31:26 2 Comments

Many health-related projects are getting millions of dollars in venture and angel funding.  But do you ever wonder where some projects get started? Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs that create an environment to share ideas, form teams and launch startups – all in a 54 hour weekend! Startup Weekend hosts over 1,000 weekend events annually around the globe focused on a mission to inspire, educate and empower individuals, teams and communities.

TSW OrganizersRecently I have the opportunity to be on the organizing team for a Startup Weekend held in the Triangle of North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) with a theme of “Health.” The Startup weekend experience is a full weekend from Friday at 5:00 pm to Sunday at 6:00 pm. The Triangle Startup Weekend runs a few hours shorter than other Startup Weekends. Why? It’s a mystery. A “traditional” Startup Weekend will have about half the participants with technical or design backgrounds and the other half will have business backgrounds.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

What made this weekend different? By organizing under the theme of “Health” the event brought together a different mix of participants and the structure of the weekend added a few new twists.  Our group was a little bit smaller than the typical event due to the summer weekend and the specialized theme of the event. Demographically we had an interesting mix including;

  • 29 Men & 15 women on teams (Does not include volunteers, mentors, judges and audience) With 34% of teams having women that’s much higher than the 10-20% usually seen at Startup Weekend.
  • Normally you would have three categories of participants: Developers, Designers and Business (non-tech). In the case of our health event we also had 16 medical professionals – 32% of our participants.
  • Triangle Startup Weekend also had a high percentage of PHDs among the participants – 21!
  • Five of the teams were led by women including the team that won the “Best Overall” – Aura.

TSW_Health_600-184

Throughout the weekend I was able to capture the experiences of the a number of the participants from the organizers to volunteers, mentors and judges. Let’s hear their reactions to their Triangle Startup Weekend Health experience.

  • Global Startup Weekend Facilitator: Shashi Jain
  • Participant: Tia Simpson
  • Participant: Michael Brown
  • Participant: Mike McNeill
  • Mentor: Dr. Michael Cousins
  • Organizer: Jon O’Donnell
  • Participant: Leo Alonzo
  • Participant: Christina
  • Volunteer: Dr. Dexter Louie
  • Presentation Coach: Andy Roth
  • Judge: Farnoosh Brock
  • Mentor: John Austin

 

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Are We Paying Enough Attention to Data Security in Digital Health?

August 4, 2014 Janet Kennedy Blog Post, Get Social Health 0 Comments

Get Social Health welcomes Digital Health Futurist Fard Johnmar as a guest blogger. We were pleased to have him as a guest on the podcast (Episode 10) and could not cover everything we wanted to discuss, particularly on the launch of his new program, Digital Health Illustrated. Congratulations to Fard and team on this new program. I know you’ll be interested in reading about it.

~ Janet Kennedy

social media for healthcareEarlier this year, health consumers, physicians, and others roundly criticized a program backed by the National Health Service to collect and centralize health data gathered by general practitioners from millions of patients across England. They were especially concerned that creating a centralized database of health records could put patients’ privacy at risk.

Are their concerns misplaced? Although data stewards take great care to secure electronic medical records, data breaches are common. In addition, we are collecting increasing amounts of sensitive health data from social media, mobile phones and now, wearable computers. Cybersecurity experts, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine and other publications warn that the health industry is woefully behind other sectors in terms of data security best practices.

In this installment of my new video blog series, Digital Health Illustrated, I focus on the dark side of the health data explosion and highlight consumers’ concerns about health data privacy and security. Click the image below to view.

Fard Johnmar is a digital health futurist and researcher focused on understanding how digital health technologies are used and perceived. He is also co-author of the global bestseller ePatient 2015: 15 Surprising Trends Changing Health Care.

social media for healthcare

Healthcare Digital Futurist Fard Johnmar

July 22, 2014 Janet Kennedy Get Social Health, Podcast 00:40:33 3 Comments

Have you ever wanted to be a time traveler? That’s how I felt during my conversation with Fard Johnmar, healthcare digital futurist and co-author of “ePatient 2015 – 15 Surprising Trends Changing Health Care.”  Instead of looking back, Fard is looking ahead and using his unique perspective to vision how digital and social media can and is impacting healthcare. His book, co-written by Rohit Bhargava, was released in December 2013 and he has already seen some of his “predictions” come to pass sooner that he had imagined.

epatient_2015During the course of our conversation we covered a lot of ground. Here are the time stamps to help you find some of the high points (or just listen to the whole episode)!

  • Digital Health Futurist at 2:38
  • “Augmented Nutrition” at 9:20
  • Data collection & analysis at 9:50
  • “Multicultural Misalignment” at 14:10
  • Digital Peer to peer healthcare at 18:34
  • Stupid Cancer & Instapeer.org at 22:41
  • “Care Hacking” at 26:40
  • “Accelerated Trial Sourcing” at 29:00

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health

Digital Health Illustrated launch at

Susannah Fox (formerly) of PEW Internet Research at 4:34 & 19:00

Matthew Zachary of StupidCancer.org at 22:41

Google Glass at 8:05

Apple HealthKit at 8:10

ePatient 2015 – Surprising Trends Changing Health Care (Affiliate link) at 8:39

Fard Johnmar LinkedIn

Social Media Tip from Ashleigh Verdier, Digital/Social Media Strategist and Content Marketing Specialist at ABB, North America. Here a a few of Ashleigh’s recommended link shorterners: Goo.gl, Ow.ly & Bit.ly

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