Women’s Health in a Digital World

At www.healthtechnologyforum.com annual conference in San Francisco, a group of eminent panel members, discussed opportunities and challenges in women’s health.  Not only healthcare in general is undergoing a major transformation, but the panelists highlighted how the world of women’s health might also transform in the coming decade, as technology is increasingly used to address and bridge the gap that currently exists in women’s health and wellness.

Intel Health Guide remote monitoring system (Photo credit: connectologist)

Christina Resasco, Founder of Mobilize for Cure and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 2013 “Woman of the Year” award winner, moderated the panel, and asked insightful questions.  Below are some highlights.

Robin Farmanfarmaian is a serial entrepreneur.  Hear early diagnosis and battling an auto immune disease, later gave her the inspiration and passion for health and wellness.  Farmanfarmaian has been a driving force behindSingularityUniversity’s highly successful FutureMed conferences.  Farmanfarmaian said, the practice of medicine will be completely disrupted in 2-5 years and will involve POC devices that will enable consumer to be a key decision maker; devices that will help in early diagnoses of several diseases taking the doctor out of it.

Fiona Ma http://bit.ly/1pK4k5R, incumbent democratic candidate for State Board of Equalization, a reputed politician, and a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, California State Assembly.  She has long a standing interest in health and wellness and is a tireless campaigner and spokesperson for “San Francisco Hepatitis B Free” campaign.  Ma herself has battled Hepatitis virus.  According to Ma, technologies that help the efficient and seamless transition to EMR or electronic medical records, will be very important.  She also talked about how the government needs to find creative ways to work with the private sector, and not work in functional silos.  Her advice to women seeking to compete in the men’s world was to be proactive in taking on greater responsibilities and self selecting when required, rather than waiting for others to appoint them.

Panelist Danielle Posa was diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma http://bit.ly/QIKSHn, at the age of 5 and learned early about the value and limitations of human life.  She campaigns and consults on health and wellness, and helps in fund raising efforts for Leukemia and Lymphoma societies.  Posa has been interviewed by Deepak Chopra on his show “One World” and has also spoken alongside him.  According to Posa, we need to integrate both the science and the art in implementing healthcare in the workplace.  She seeks to connect the public and the private sector leaders and help them broaden their focus from traditional metrics like GDP to more wholistic measures that reflect the quality of life.

Anne DeGheest (http://bit.ly/176Ij4j ) founded Healthtech Capital and MedStars Venture Partners several years ago, with a mission to save lives, through utilization of technology.  She believes, we need to think outside the box to influence positive change in consumer behaviors, in order to disrupt healthcare.  She firmly believes that data for the sake of data does not do anything; instead technology focus will have to be on solving pain points.  She said entrepreneurs often neglect the market and focus on building prototypes or products.  She advised that instead the entrepreneurs focus on understanding the market and the value proposition they are offering, in to solve the pain points.  She said historically healthcare has been sold to men, but in many households, the “chief medical officer” at home, are moms.  One of the disruptions will occur on account of the wider role that pharmacy chains will likely play in healthcare, in future.  Most of the Americans live within 3 mile radius of pharmacy chains and these chains will step in to provide basic care.

Vanessa Mason serves as Senior Manager with eHealth and ZeroDivide.  She manages the project portfolio, contributing to design, development, and adoption of products and services that promote health equity.   With a strong focus on healthcare disparity and how that negatively impacts women,  Mason has sought to bridge the gap through efficient use of technology.  By some estimates, in certain geographical areas in the US, about 4 in 10 women, do not receive healthcare.  Rates of women without health insurance have been higher among African American women.  Some recent projects “text for wellness” and “mobilize”, focused on cardivascular health prevention for African-American women.  This was a great example of efficient use of technology that did not add to the costs, but effectively connected people to keep them informed and focused on meeting their wellness goals.  Often these women are pursuing career opportunities while single handedly taking care of families and have to navigate multiple worlds.  Technology can only help if it is easily accessible and affordable.  She advised entrepreneurs that they focus on enhancing quality of life of the 80% of population towards the bottom of the pyramid, where there are many gaps that also represent huge opportunities.

 

 

 

Fiona Ma (Assemblywoman & Campaigner against Hepatitis B) to speak at Health Technology Forum Conference

Hepatitis B Virus (Photo credit: AJC1)

Hepatitis B (HBV) virus is a very common virus worldwide.   Approximately, 1.2 million people in the United States are affected by this virus.  Almost 350 million people worldwide, are living with Hepatitis B.  Many people with Hepatitis B are likely to be infected at birth or in early childhood, and due to lack of immediate attention, have developed a lifelong chronic infection.   Hepatitis B is a contagious liver disease that is commonly spread through blood, semen, or other body fluids.  Most people do not experience symptoms until it is too late.  The virus causes 80% of all liver cancers, if left untreated.  Hepatitis B can be prevented with vaccination.  And with immediate attention and monitoring with nutrition, fluids, and medical supervision, acute Hep B can also be effectively treated.

Fiona Ma, incumbent democratic candidate for State Board of Equalization, a reputed politician and a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, California State Assembly, is a tireless campaigner and spokesperson for “San Francisco Hepatitis B Free” campaign.  San Francisco has the highest concentration of Hep B in the country.  Ma herself learned that she had Hep B, when she was 22.  She acquired it from her mother, who had acquired it from her mother.  About 1 in every 10 Asian Americans, is infected with the virus.  Ma’s mother had developed liver scars and having caught that early, had it removed.

English: California State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fiona Ma will be giving keynote address at Health Technology Innovation Forum annual conference on May, 20 at Parc 55, Wyndham Hotel, SF.  The conference is focused on exploring pathways to sustainable health through various means including “best practices for globally underserved”, through “gamification” and “patient engagement”, and through “building resilient communities for better outcomes”.  Traditionally, this conference is heavily attended by physicians from UCSF, as well as entrepreneurs focused on healthcare breakthroughs.  Please register for the conference at http://www.healthtechnologyforum.com , as my friend, with the discount code “HTF14-FriendOfOrganizer” and send me your first & last name at wd_darshana at hotmail dot com, to get $150 off the price of the ticket.

 

Please note other upcoming events below – dates & deadlines.

1) Register for #TiEcon at link https://www.123signup.com/register?id=dbnfb&ref=4182698  as my guest & enter promo code tievalue to get $100 discount. If you are an entrepreneur, I would say this is the conference, you don’t want to miss.  Check out great agenda, top notch speakers & panelists on #IoT, #bigdata, #cloud, and #Healthcare tracks at http://www.tiecon.org.

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