2009 USC Body Computing Conference 3.0:
The Patient as the Consumer
Webcast & Summary

Friday, October 9, 2009

Opening Remarks & Panel One

Leslie Saxon, MD, Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, USC Keck School of Medicine

Elizabeth Garrett, JD Vice President for Academic Planning and Budget, Senior Administration, USC

Carmen Puliafito, Dean, USC Keck School of Medicine

Dr. Saxon, conference director, opened the third Body Computing Conference with her insights on how the field of networked medicine is going to dramatically change the culture of healthcare.  After introducing Elizabeth Garrett and Dean Puliafito, she unveiled “Beating Heart,” a new iPhone game developed at USC that revolutionizes the way kids think about heart rate.

Elizabeth Garrett and Carmen Puliafito then shared their insights on the critical accomplishments Body Computing is making toward empowering patients and improving an antiquated healthcare model.

Application Demonstration:
Dr. Saxon, along with programmer Trina Gregory, demoed the USC mobile application, Beating Heart, a game co-developed with Corventis Biomedical.  The app collects data wirelessly from a patch placed on the chest, allowing users to share their heart rate through status updates on social networks.  The app also has a personality quiz and a truth-or-dare component that includes heart rate, and is meant—through social networking—to make young people more heart aware—a mood ring for the iPhone generation. 

Panel One: The Technology Continuum—Games to High End Medical Diagnostics: is the Patient Pay Piece Crucial?

Moderator: Dana Mead, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Panelist: Don Jones, JD, MBA Vice President, Business Development, Health & Life Sciences, Qualcomm

Panelist: Gadi Amit, Principal Designer and Founder, NewDealDesign

Panelist: Brian Fitzgerald, Deputy Division Director, Division of Electrical and Software Engineering, US Food and Drug Administration

Panelist: Anne DeGheest, Founder, Medstars

Panelist: Ashish Soni, Director of ITP, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Dana Mead led business experts, designers, engineers, and policy makers in a discussion about the market for mobile and wireless enabled health devices in addition to models for paying for these new technologies.  Don Jones provided insight on how telecommunication companies are targeting weaknesses within the healthcare system as Gadi Amit showcased NewDealDesign’s FitBit, a new calorie tracker designed to creatively engage the consumer.  Anne DeGheest introduced some promising new start-ups in the wireless sensor market while Ashish Soni tackled the gaming aspects of new medical applications that utilize these sensors.  With questions surrounding a slew of new medical applications being developed for consumer use on the iPhone, Blackberry, and other smartphone devices, Brian Fitzgerald assured attendees that these phones will never be regulated as medical devices, removing a large obstacle to the proliferation of these technologies.   

Panel One: Part Two

Panel Two

Latitude Application Demonstration:

This iPhone app, co-developed with Boston Scientific, enables physicians to share patient physiological data with other physicians seamlessly and to communicate critical information to their patients such as the battery level on their pacemaker swiftly and efficiently. 

Panel Two: Redefining Traditional Medical and Business Practices around the Patient as Consumer

Moderator: David Cassak, Managing Partner; Editor at Windhover Information Inc.

Panelist: John Lalonde, Vice President Latitude Research & Development, Boston Scientific CRM

Panelist: Marshall Stanton, MD Vice President, Clinical Research, Medtronic Inc.; Senior Staff Member, Medtronic CRDM

Panelist: Chris Kasabach, Co-Founder, Director BodyMedia, Inc.

Panelist: Sidna Tulledge-Scheitel, Medical Director, Global Products and Services, Mayo Clinic

Panelist: Mike Lepp, Vice President, External Products, St. Jude Medical CRMD

David Cassak questioned executives from Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and St. Jude about how major device companies are incorporating networked technologies in order to engage consumers and integrate with EMRs.  Although concerned about the monetization of these networked solutions, Lalonde, Stanton, and Lepp all acknowledged growing patient expectations for information and access to constant support.  While excited to discuss their companies’ development of networked solutions, they also wondered at what point remote monitoring and data gathering become excessive—how much is too much? 

Dr. Tulledge-Scheitel agreed that providers need to start delivering healthcare beyond the four walls of the hospital but instead prioritized the development of person centric applications as she presented on the Mayo Clinic’s approach to integrated healthcare.  Recognizing the need to monitor consumers before life-threatening events in elderly populations, Chris Kasabach shared new affordable body sensors from BodyMedia that track users’ caloric expenditures and sleep patterns.

Keynote Speaker: Daniel Kraft, MD

Physician scientist Daniel Kraft discussed his revolutionary stem cell research at Stanford University, his exposure to next gen biotech, and his vision of the future of healthcare as the internet, wearable computing, and health informatics converge.  To give us a taste of what Body Computing might be in ten years, Dr. Kraft shared an innovative medical animation created by David Bolinsky that utilizes body computing devices in the DARPA soldier project.

Panel Three: Part One
 
Panel Three: Body Computing and New Businesses: Non-traditional Businesses and Approaches to Networked Medicine

Moderator: James Mault, MD, Director, Health Solutions Group, Microsoft

Panelist: Lucy Hood, Executive Director, Institute for Communication Technology Management, USC Marshall School of Business, formerly President of Fox Mobile Entertainment

Panelist: Marientina Gotsis, Media Lab Manager USC School of Cinematic Arts

Panelist: Charles Gildehaus, Managing Partner, Gildehaus & Company
 
Renaming his panel title to “Disruption” along with his fellow panelists, James Mault led an engaging discussion on how new fields—and an unprecedented level of connectivity through smartphones and social networks—are going to revolutionize healthcare.  After a stimulating presentation on the steps Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group has taken to help consumers manage their medical information online, Dr. Mault challenged this group of interactive media and telecommunications experts to explain why physicians should use new mediums to connect with patients.  Following up on a critical question, Mault asked, “how do you get consumers and health care providers to engage?”  

Charles Gildehaus and Lucy Hood argued that healthcare needs to recognize that consumers are changing their behavior dramatically with the massive commoditization of information and convergence of media.  Healthcare has two major problems that conflict with this trend: “really expensive experts in really inconvenient places, and that can’t hold”.  Hood elaborated on her experience in the mobile entertainment industry: she’s seen a major disruption in the way that consumers relate to their mobile devices and suggested that physicians should capitalize on this technology proliferation.  From another entertainment perspective, Marientina Gotsis argued that new health solutions will have to include two big concepts—storytelling and social networking.  Ultimately, the panel concluded that this paradigm shift in healthcare means making things simple, convenient, and entertaining.

Panel Three: Part Two

Panel Four: The Interface to the Consumer

Moderator: Ed Saxon, Academy Award-winning Producer

Panelist: George Savage, Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer, Proteus Biomedical

Panelist: Joe Perez, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing, Demand Media

Panelist: Kai Worrell, President, Worrell Inc.

Panelist: Kate Rockwood, Associate Editor Fast Company Magazine

After a day’s worth of discussions on new technology that makes an unprecedented level of personal physiological data accessible, physicians asked, how do we make patients interested in that information?  Moderator Ed Saxon and his panelists addressed that challenge in addition to the question of privacy concerns.  George Savage discussed Proteus Biomedical’s “Raisin,” a new mobile application and smart pill designed to help schizophrenics maintain their medication regimen by connecting physicians, patients, and their loved ones over a network.  Joe Perez shared valuable insight on the power of social networks to positively change behavior and the supremacy of consumer feedback and demand, while Kate Rockwood discussed the range of new products she’s seen this year as a journalist who covers cutting edge technology and the success and pitfalls these products face.  Following up on the second panel’s concerns about overwhelming consumers with a glut of personal medical information, Kai Worrell suggested from a designer’s perspective that if the presentation of this information is simple and user-friendly, this transition—the increase in consumption of personal medical information and statistics—will excite patients instead of overwhelming them.  The panel concluded that 2010 is going to see huge shifts in approaches to healthcare.

Panel Four: Part Two

2009 Body Computing Slam, Part One
Thursday October 8th, 2009

MC: Andrew Thompson, CEO, Proteus Biomedical

Judge: Richard Hull, PhD, Director of Stevens Institute for Innovation, USC

Judge: Jonathan Lash, PhD, Director, Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at USC

Judge: Neil Eigler, MD, Senior Vice President, CRMD Technology Incubation, St. Jude Medical

Judge: Uday Kumar, MD, Founder, iRhythm Technologies

Presenter: Tom Sloper, faculty, USC Viterbi School of Engineering: Body Computing: The Future of Video Games

Presenter: John Bell, PhD, Nyx Inc.: Wearable Health Monitoring System

(Coming Soon)

2009 Body Computing Slam, Part Two:

Presenter: Ellis Meng, PhD, Professor, USC Viterbi School of Engineering: Wireless Chronic Drug Delivery Platforms

Presenter: Andreas Molisch, PhD, Professor, USC Viterbi School of Engineering: Cognitive Medical Environment

Presenter: Donna Spruijt-Metz, PhD, Associate Professor of Research, Keck School of Medicine: The KNOWME Network: Energy-Efficient Activity-Detection for Pediatric Obesity

(Coming Soon)