San Francisco is the location for the 2012 Better Health Conference, focusing on how best to use large data sets to improve our health. Experts from all over the world are presenting on everything from better methods of detecting health issues to improved ways to treat those issues. Videos of the researchers and their experiments will be shown. For an up-to-date understanding of where we stand on these issues, this is the conference to attend.
The Body 2.0
It all starts with The Body 2.0. This is a lecture and exercise combination designed to promote healthy living. As Dr. Alan Greene explains how healthy life choices of food and activity can create happier lives, audience members will participate in yoga while listening to soothing music and munching on healthy food choices. Linda Phillips discusses how digital technology can be used to improve ourselves. It will be a terrific way to start the conference.
San Francisco is hosting the first of these events and Body 2.0 is being showcased indoors in a bright, contemporary space and outdoors as well. All of this in SOMA (south of Market St.) where all the initial activities are taking place. There is no better place to showcase a healthy lifestyle. Next year is scheduled for Los Angeles and New York so plan quickly.
The morning will start with speakers that include Keith D’Amelio of the NikeSparQ Elite Athletic Team, professional dancer Krishna Hanks, and mountain climber Arlene Blum who now runs the Green Science Policy Institute. Each will discuss how discipline, the right food and exercise will enable you to overcome your own Everests in life.
Then, you will be feted with a fuel upgrade meaning your innards will be going on a vacation to a far, far, better place for a bit. There, your taste buds will encounter local, organic, hormone-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan, and even paleo foods. No, that does not mean you will be eating what the dinosaurs munched on for breakfast. However, you may find yourself noshing on a native delicacy that hasn’t been seen in local stores in quite some time. Go west young and old and explore what nature intended we Californians to dine on, but our culture denied us for this long.
Speakers here include Ashley Koff, Cate Shannahan, who is a founding member of the Ancestral Eating movement (sounds way too interesting to pass up), Catherine McCord who has authored books on healthy eating for kids, Nate Miyaki, a natural body builder which means nothing more need be said about him, and Ed Brown who, unfortunately, will spell out what environmental chemicals are currently surrounding us that we really need to avoid and how to do that.
The third segment concerns Mobile Medicine. This is short form for how to improve our medical treatment while on the move. Speakers here are Jane Sarasohn-Cohn who is a healthcare economist and Amar Kendale who is exploring how bionics can improve the human condition. That will end the first day.
Health Law 2.0
The second course is Health Law 2.0 and that showcases what is new in health law and how attendees can learn how to avoid the pitfalls coming their way and capitalize on new opportunities. How the Affordable Care Act will affect you and how you can capitalize on it. Everyone associated with health care should consider this course as it will discuss patient/consumer legal issues and the legal issues with providers, plans and life sciences.
Reese Hirsch, Devin McGraw and Joy Pritts will discuss the latest development in security and patient privacy regarding medical records. Considering how many security questions everyone has to provide to access their own bank accounts, to say this is a large issue today for maintaining privacy with medical records would be a major understatement.
Scott Edelstein and Roger Coen will discuss how to build a medical website that provides helpful information on basic health issues without slipping into the murky waters of practicing accidental medicine without a license. If you are a medical professional who happens not to be a website programmer and you hire such a person to provide the community with health advice, this course will show you how to avoid placing yourself in jeopardy while trying to do a good deed for your local community.
Doctors 2.0
Jesse Witten, Jill Gordon, and Gerry Hinckley will discuss the medical professional dilemma of how to encourage patients to patronize your services without incentives that could be interepreted as kickbacks since kickbacks will cause you to lose your license.
Laura Sciarrino and Mitchell Olejko discuss Federal Drug Administration guidelines on what can and cannot be advertised on the web and still be called a legal drug, device or service.
Employer Law 2.0
Employers, of course, also have an interest in the new medicine of the millennium. The more informed they are about the health of their workforce, the more proactive they can be concerning those health issues since alleviating them will produce a happier workforce. A happier workforce generally creates a happier workplace and that is usually more productive than not.
Rebecca Chiu, Jordan Goldberg, and Mike Dermer will show the attendees how employers can do this safely, without interference, and create a far healthier environment.
Nancy Vaughn of Kaiser will discuss the benefits of Wellness programs, and how employers can implement these programs cheaply and simply without sacrificing any downtime and result in dramatic results.
Nate Randall of Tesla Motors discusses Health Care Decisions and Health Care Exchanges. What are the benefits of public vs. private health care exchanges?
The Patient 2.0
Probably the most important talk of the entire conference regarding medicine and health occurs at this time. It is the patient’s time to speak. Patients are so fed up with the medical bureaucracy that they are forming their own groups to discuss their experiences, and rate the individual doctors and hospitals each has either had the privilege or misfortune of attending. In forming these groups, they have recognized that they have social power that they can wield as the group grows larger. As it reaches more people it has a greater affect on community institutions. Doctors can be put out of business if these groups choose to do that. Hospitals can lose money for the same reason.
Sara Krug will discuss how the patient has moved from needed guinea pig of the medical establishment to power broker by using the digital pen as a scalpel that removes unwanted medical professionals from the neighborhood. More importantly, she will discuss how medical establishments can improve how they relate to these patient groups through better websites and customer service and survive to live to tell about it.
In What Research Brings to the Table, Thomas Horan discusses the challenges facing medical research facilities in bringing new products to the market. How the cost of innovation can be prohibitive while knowing the medical advance could save countless lives. How hospitals can assist these young entrepreneurs in getting the product tested to find out if further investment and nurturing is warranted.
iPharma
Pharmaceutical companies have long had a vested interest in hospitals and other medical facilities remaining in business: they can sell more drugs. The money made from those sales can be reinvested in new research that develops newer drugs as the old ones lose their competitive advantage against the microbes inhabiting our world. Well, each of those drugs must be patented for the companies to make that profit. Sadly, patents do expire and if the company is not fast enough, a competitor will market a similar drug when that patent does expire, and profit off that similar drug. That means the original company has to invest a lot more money in new research to find another drug to patent. Or, it can use the new digital age to devise a new strategy.
The Better Health Conference is a mutitiered, collaborative based health hub. to learn more pleae visit http://www.health2con.com/