Joseph A. Cerro

Health 2.0 Conference (Oct '08) Twitter Stream

When I attended the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last month, I learned that some of the participants planned to microblog the conference using twitter. Twitter is a tool that allows users to post short messages (140 characters or fewer) to the web and to share them easily with others. When multiple twitter users "follow" each other online, the effect is something like joining a near real time conversation.

Somewhere along the way, twitter users began adding a "#" symbol (pound sign or hash character) before key words in their messages, tagging the words as being somehow important or adding context. The neat thing about such "hashtags" is that twitter's search tool lets you find messages containing specific hashtags, even if you aren't "following" the person who originally posted the message.

This is where it gets interesting: if people agree on a hashtag for an event (like a conference), then it becomes easy to follow what is happening at that conference, even if you are not actually attending it. Further, collecting messages with a specific hashtag creates a record of an event, not so different from collecting a series of dispatches by a group of correspondents. Finally, if you are at a conference, following a hashtag thread can let you know about last minute changes, insider info, spontaneous get-togethers, or simply where to find the best beer within walking distance of the convention center.

At the Health 2.0 Conference, people settled on the #health2con and #health20con hashtags. Using these tags truly added to the conference experience, allowing people to connect and to converse with a wide range of participants whom they might not have met otherwise, and, best of all, providing a means to keep the conversation going beyond the conference.

The consolidated #health2con/#health20con search results are available at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23health20con+OR+%23health2con&rpp=100

Unfortunately, twitter's search engine only returns the last six months of results, so that link may not show the results from this past October's conference by next April or May. On the bright side, by then I'm sure that it will show the results from the next Health 2.0 Conference, to be held on April 22-23, 2009 in Boston!

Now, we just need to get the ball rolling for a hashtag for next month's Consumer Health World conference...

A Community-Driven Health Informatics Calendar

Mark Hawker has been on fire recently! His latest effort is a community-driven Health Informatics Calendar that anyone using an iCal-compatible calendar tool (Google Calendar, Apple iCal, etc.) can subscribe to. While there are other good calendars out there, most of them are company or organization focused, like the HIMSS calendar.

(Note: the calendar uses the London timezone by default, so adjust your perspective accordingly if you are based elsewhere.)

Update: Jen McCabe Gorman points out another good calendar, hosted at the Kaiser Network.

Top 30 Health Tweeple

Mark Hawker has created a list of the "Top 30 Health Tweeple," (aka people who use twitter and tweet about health topics), and he put me on the list!

That means I'm going to have to boost my game!

Many thanks, Mark!

2009 Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference

During the last five or six years, I've given a series of talks about the importance of embracing serendipity in industrial R&D, rather than applying too much "six sigma" style engineering to research processes. A different engineering emphasis is required, particularly in early research, where uncertainty is greatest, and where rapid adaptation, rather than a priori prediction, seems more feasible. I've enjoyed developing that basic idea into a reasonable set of process guidelines and best practices that are now recognizably deployed in the real world.

More recently, improvements in consumer technology and software interfaces have made it easier than ever to collect diverse information and, better yet, to respond to unexpected signals in the data which might impact product development or even human health (positively and negatively). This sets the stage for the next phase of embracing serendipity.

The folks at Cambridge Healthtech Institute were kind enough to invite me to give an "enabling serendipity" update at their Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference in San Francisco in February. Perfect timing! This will be a great opportunity to highlight the truly innovative work that some of my clients have been undertaking in the areas of consumer-technology enabled pharma R&D, theranostic development, and care management, all of which incorporate an openness to serendipity. Here is my preliminary abstract:

Democratized Serendipity: Leveraging Consumer-Oriented Technologies into Better R&D and Better Health Care Decisions.
Joseph A. Cerro, President, The Schooner Group, LLC

The combination of (1) ubiquitous consumer electronic devices, (2) flexible, inexpensive manufacturing capabilities, (3) easy to use "Web 2.0" interfaces, and (4) an increasing willingness of individuals to manage aspects of their own health care creates an unprecedented opportunity to collect patient data in the field in near real time. Analyzing such data has the potential to transform the way pharmaceutical companies manage clinical development programs and may create new opportunities for theranostic development, biomarker validation, and, most importantly, individualized care management. Several such projects will be discussed in this session.

If you have any suggestions for the talk, or if there is a particular issue that you'd like me to cover, just send me a note via email or Twitter. I'll also be moderating a session or two in the conference's R&D informatics track. If you'll be at the conference, I hope to see you there!

Updated - Download Presentation: (1.8 MB Zipped PDF file).

Starting a Healthcare Data Portability Group

One of my Boston Technology Leadership Council colleagues, J. Trent Adams, reached out and recruited me, along with Anthony Broad-Crawford and a few others, to investigate setting up a Health Care Task Force under the auspices of the DataPortability Project.

We'll have an initial round of discussions. If we reach a consensus around identifying key practical issues for consumer data portability in health care, then we'll most likely publish an initial position paper to highlight those issues. If all goes well, we'd move on to consider specific use cases and practical implications for consumers and service providers, identifying technical, legal, and social ramifications along the way. At that point, we'd likely issue a position paper to summarize the field and to propose next steps to help players develop consistent, reasonable approaches to health data portability. All of this would be coupled with public presentations, panels, blog entries, you name it, throughout the process.

Check out the DataPortability Project FAQ for more information about the general, non-healthcare specific initiative, and please let me know if you'd like to join the Health Care conversation.

An e-Health Acknowledgment

I was pleasantly surprised to see my name on an acknowledgment slide in Vertex Pharmaceuticals CEO Joshua Boger's keynote presentation at the Bio-IT World conference (see streaming video of his keynote). I've been working with the Vertex people and a few other consultants to help them develop their truly innovative approach to e-Health. Some companies aren't very eager to acknowledge their own employees in public (never mind their consultants), but Vertex seems to take the high road. Thanks Josh!

Update: A summary of Josh Boger's keynote is available in the June 2008 issue of Bio-IT World magazine.

Medical Device Usability Gets Noticed

As I've helped an elderly relative navigate through the US health care system over the past couple of years, I've been struck by how often essential information is available, but not truly accessible, to patients, to providers, to payers, and to other caregivers, due, in large part, to a lack of "usability" or good industrial design in software, hardware, or business processes.

Today I came across an interesting blog called aiming for grace: chronic illness considered. It's written by a designer with diabetes who wears an insulin pump. In one recent post, she comments on a cleverly titled BusinessWeek article.

...there were some research data that spoke to the role of good design and medical compliance and behavior in a quantitative, statistical way. Design is so often dismissed as extra, "nice to have" component rather than a critical, integral part of making a functional and effective product or tool. The study this article references at least broaches that misconception. "Recent research bears out...that design can influence how a patient deals with his disease...researchers said they looked at quality-of-life issues for...patients with type 1 diabetes. They found people who used [easy to use insulin pumps] experienced 70% less therapy-related dissatisfaction than those who repeatedly inject themselves." Ok, so they're comparing pump therapy to shot therapy but still, it's a start. There is a correlation between design and behavior which is totally cool. It's saying that the technology and quality one uses to manage this disease impacts the experience, approach and behavior in living with it.

I couldn't agree more. I also came across a provocative blog post by Amy Tenderich at Diabetes Mine, where she eloquently makes the case for Steve Jobs-like user interface wizardry for medical devices.