As I write this, it is after 1am in my home time zone. Yet, I feel inspired to write about my experience at Day One of the 2014 Stanford Medicine X Meeting. What you see above is the famous badge that this meeting is known for. In addition to the enormous size of the badge itself, it is also a book which holds the meeting schedule inside and other information like the wifi password, etc. There are QR codes all over the place here, so on the badge as well. One day, all meetings will have a cool badge like this.
The three most compelling stories (in my humble opinion) follow below. They also include a video piece which I stole from the conference video feed at this link. Now before you ask me, the link is only for the last couple of hours of Day One, not the entire day. Hopefully, the conference organizers will make the entire day available sometime soon.
"These prosthetics turn kids into superheroes," is a quote from Jon Schull from E-Nabling The Future. This is a passionate group of people in the Maker Faire tradition of creating cool stuff. This group is passionate about using 3D Printers to create prostheses (artificial limbs like artificial arms) for people who need them.
Jon told a fascinating story about how they use technology to make an artificial arm a reality for a child. In the video above, you see the end of the presentation in which a child is brought up to show off her new arm and share how she feels about it. Cool story on how technology can make things better for a little girl.
THE most powerful three minutes of Day One was by someone who wasn't even at #MedX in person....
"The underserved are not separate or different from us. The underserved could be any of the people in this room. I'm appalled at times to see how separated people are from those they are ostensibly helping. We need it to be not 'Us versus Them.' Some of us have been or will become them. I AM THEM." This is part of the powerful ignite talk entitled "The Underserved Patient" by Erin Gilmer (on twitter @GilmerHealthLaw).
The video you can see above. She could not attend in person, but she did pre-record her talk. The power of her voice and her storytelling is something I'm still thinking about and processing. This talk was a smaller piece of a full letter that she wrote to conference organizers. The full letter can be found at this link via Heart Sisters.
Finally, the panel that had twitter abuzz, was focused on a guy who is not even on twitter, not even in the program schedule, and proudly proclaims that he avoids smartphones....
"Most technology solutions are great for everyone except the end user," Devon Low proudly said while sitting on a panel entitied "The No SmartPhone Patient" moderated by our pal Dana Lewis. San Francisco General Hospital connected with Mr. Low and asked him to be on this panel.
I encourage you to watch the edited video above which I focused on Mr Low. There are so many pearls of wisdom in this 20 minute video. He starts out by sharing his story about being diagnosed with chronic lung disease. He doesn't use a smartphone for any kind of tracking, but he does carry paper chart/records with him when he sees his primary care physician and his specialists.
How did he learn about his disease? Through public library computer access. He challenges physicians, providers, and anyone who will listen - to share as much relevant information with patients. "If you want me to be an active participant in my care, then physicians/providers should make my health information interesting and compelling so I want to look at those statistics."
Our pal Chris Snider tweeted, "Devon Low is grounding this entire conference in a much needed dose of reality. Living in the cloud can create tunnel vision." Now, later in the panel, Mr. Low said that he is not on twitter and hesitant to be on social media, at this point. I totally understand that. But, I hope that he continues to tell his story and to consider include digital communication (like social media) to share his story...