Just as they got back from Toronto, Syndicom’s CEO Scott Capdevielle, and Walker Thompson, VP of Sales and Marketing, went a-roving once more…this time to the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco this week. Walker’s been texting and tweeting all day to bring us live news from the conference which is dedicated to innovations in search to healthcare-focused social networks and consumer sites as well as the exciting trends in wellness and personalized medicine taking shape on the horizon. There are about 1000 people attending and some top names in technology and health care so this is definitely the place to be this week!

The main scene of action appears to be the main hall with its three 20′ by 20′ screens, wide stage and room full of people. Speakers and cameras catch every word and action. After presentations, which I believe Jen McCabe Gorman trained people to deliver in 3.5 minutes, there is time to converse and as Walker says, “people are so open to conversation. ‘What do you do?’ opens any conversation!” So far, he has managed to chat with McKesson Technologies, LOTS of Sermo people, BeWell, CaringBridge, PharmaSurveyor, Novartis (he said Hi), Olive, Brian Klepper, Merck and Within3, whose work he greatly admired!

The keynote speaker today was Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations and an associate teacher at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He spoke at length about how people can coordinate now through technologies and are forming small groups to deal with the larger issues of the current healthcare system. Doctors are using new communication tools and by posting content to discussion boards, are changing the way patients/doctors interact.

However, Shirky points out, not everyone is over the moon about these developments and there are some organizations actively preventing an engagement with Health 2.0. Still, Shirky suggests, the power of the patient-provider partnership should not be underestimated as each reaches out across the ether to engage and move out of their silo-ed existences. As Shirky puts it, “…the Web empowers patients in a way that doctors and HMOs can resist but not defeat….It’s going to be weird out there.” Case in point – one attendee asked what happens when doctors organize? The response – we don’t see doctors organizing …..but examples like hello health are illuminating…. Walker thought “what about Syndicom and Spine Connect?”

On the tech side of the day, Walker reports that widgets are everywhere as people increasingly share content with care providers, searches, other patients etc. For example, users can now have an account with Kaiser Permanente and share with them their health info from Microsoft’s Health Vault. Yep, definitely getting interesting out there!

With thanks to Shinemy and Andrea in Amsterdam for the cool flix!

Participate. Collaborate. Co-create.

Kirsten Broadfoot

Tags: bewel, BeWell, Brian Klepper, bwell, caring bridge, CaringBridge, Clay Shirky, collaboration, collaboration software, communication tools, health 2.0, Health Vault, health web 2.0, healthvault microsoft, hellohealth, here comes everbody, Kaiser Permanente, kaiser permanente ca, McKesson, Merck, microsoft health, Novartis, Olive, personalized medicine, PharmaSurveyor, Sermi, social networks, spineconnect, tools of communication, Within3

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Blog.