The folks of Health 2.0 (definitions) missed each other so much that they held an interim conference (excuse me, Health 2.0 “Unconference”) from March 3-5 to stoke conversations amongst participants.

Microsoft showed off HealthVault. American Well was explained. And a whole bunch of other stuff happened…

The rush through the summary of what happened is because I wanted to get to Scott Schreeve’s closing comments blog post. The point Mr. Schreeve makes is that while the companies of Health 2.0 are serving the needs of someone (hopefully a group of people, read the post for a worthy health care long tail explanation), we must also remember the raison d’etre of new technology: improve the health care delivered in this country.

I have always maintained that the enabling technologies were only part of the story - and the thing they should be enabling is the transition to next generation healthcare (which is going to involve some very painful reform - ie, “this is going to sting a little”). For this reason, I have focused on the concepts of value driven health care (outcomes/price), transparency, openness within healthcare (and open source!), and collective intelligence via networked collaboration (social or otherwise). These reform concepts are critical if we are to begin to correct the fundamental and foundational problems that plague our health care “system.”

What I liked most, however, were the seven words Mr. Schreeve used to describe the “next generation health system:”

Effective, Efficient, Equitable. Technology Enabled Reform. Thrive.

Looks like I have found my raison d’etre.

This entry is filed under Health Care Reform.