This is a repost of my article on the Ashoka Changemaker’s Social Media Blog regarding their new competition.

With the advancement of an increasing set of social tools, better ways to stay connected and the growing spotlight on better health care options – a movement is getting into full swing to empower patients and individuals to live better, healthier lives. You’ve heard of power to the people, well things are moving to give power to the patient.

• Accessing your medical records on your sleek new smartphone.
• Doctors chatting with you over an instant messenger platform to help with your questions on a sore throat.
• Organizations specifically concerned with the interaction of patients and physicians in the connected world.

Don’t wait for the Jetsons theme song to start playing. This is more real than you think and it’s actually happening right now. We’ve all heard that age old phrase “knowledge is power” – well that phrase comes into play now more than ever! It’s so important now that patients get equipped with the data and best practices that will help them the most – no more blanket diagnoses that may or may not be relevant. Even better, we are taking advantage of technologies to positively affect lives.

Some smart people are on top of this movement and with their leadership and effective collaborations, I have no doubt that beneficial changes will be seen in the health care world for all of us. The way I see it patient empowerment has a lot in common with the public health world – specifically with health communications where the goal is to equip the public with the information they need to make better choices for their health. Check out this great video from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation giving an overview of the patient empowerment initiative:

One of the great collaborations that I’m excited to see getting kicked off is a new competition with the folks from Ashoka Changemakers and the Amgen Foundation. The initiative kicks off today and invites those movers, shakers and thinkers who are interested in tackling health issues around the globe and elevating the voices of patients. The Patients | Choices | Empowerment competition is seeking solutions that tap the medical experience, knowledge, and wisdom of current and past patients, health care practitioners, advocates and other key stakeholders to ensure that patients have an active role in their personal healthcare. When it comes to our health, it only makes sense that the ideal solutions are those that empower the patient and provide ways for them to make informed decisions.

Onto the good stuff:

The three winners of this competition – the finalist individuals or organizations that receive the most votes online – will each receive a cash prize of USD $10,000. Early entries, received by 5PM EDT on August 25th, will be considered eligible to win one early entry prize of USD $1,000, and will remain eligible to win the competition. Following the competition, selected entries may be invited to submit proposals to the Amgen Foundation for future funding consideration. The Amgen Foundation will consider awarding up to USD $1 million in grants to support promising innovations in patient empowerment submitted by qualifying nonprofit organizations.

I’m really looking forward to looking at the competition entries – I love new ideas and innovation. What better use for those ideas than to make the world a healthier place?

I’ve seen various versions of this concept but I thought it was particularly awesome to see BJ Fogg giving us a peek into his own Work ‘n Walk desk system. Looking at ways to introduce public health 2.0 really has to do with integrating better health in small ways to things we are used to doing. In this case, typing away at our computers.

BJ Fogg is a noted mobile health and behavior change technology thought leader. He recently designed this year’s Mobile Health 2010 conference out in Stanford, CA and heads up the Persuasive Technology Lab. Read more about him at his site.

Recently I had the privilege to attend the 3^rd annual Sex::Tech conference hosted by ISIS, inc. The conference was held in San Francisco, CA which is appropriate given the amount of work they have done in the area in regards to sexual and public health. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Sex::Tech (now, now – don’t blush too hard) is a meeting of the minds surrounding issues related to sexual health, technology/new media and young people. It was absolutely mind blowing to listen to the current state of sex education and related issues straight from the mouths of the young people that are being affected. Not from adults who think they know what’s going on – definitely a difference there. I mean seriously, I just turned 28 and I felt like I was a senior citizen with the things I was hearing. With all due respect, no 300 page CDC report could touch this kind of community/demographic insight.

Day one of the conference kicked off with a panel discussion consisting of college age students discussing their experiences with sex education growing up and relevant issues of how to reshape sex education in the classrooms of the future. Topics ranged from mixing boys/girls together for classes to incorporating attention to the growing number of openly identifying LGBT teens. No matter where you sit on the spectrum of acceptance – you cannot ignore the statistics and the issues taking place with our young people today regarding HIV/AIDS and other STD infections. The mere fact that many young people don’t consider oral sex as…sex….is a problem. As my college human sexuality professor would tell us: “Anything you can put something, you can get something”.

The rest of the day consisted of breakout sessions and a plenary session from sponsoring organizations discussing what they do and the relevant issues they are working hard diligently on. One of the organizations I was really proud of was MTV for becoming part of the engagement and conversation surrounding an issue that affects their core audience. Jason Rzepka, VP of Public Affairs at MTV Networks, (who also won a PopTech award that morning) was there to discuss their collaboration with the Kaiser Family Foundation (also in attendance) on their GYT (Get Yourself Tested/Talking) campaign. The day ended with an awesome wine tasting meet and greet at the Press Club in downtown SF. I hung out with one of my favorite people, Amy Jussel of Shaping Youth for most of the conference – this is definitely a relevant conference for her as she focuses on the effects of marketing and media on young people. Check out her three part interview with Deb Levine, Director of ISIS, Inc.

Alongside my friend Leslie Bradshaw, I gave a presentation looking at online engagement strategies for public health:

I was also really excited to get Deb on camera as she closed out the conference with some great thoughts.

And finally an interview with ISIS’ Youth Marketing Manager who is very into public health and new ideas, Margaret Lucas:

I thought the event was well organized with great opportunities to learn about fantastic campaigns and projects that are impacting the landscape of public health through sexual education innovation. I’m glad that this conference is moving forward because for alot of sexual health education and prevention initiatives, we have not been paying attention to the people that are in the middle of the problems. Sex::Tech allows an opportunity for those working in the field to hear about the experiences of young people and how to better shape programs for the future.

From RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio:

In a world with abundant, actionable health data – both from electronic medical records and our everyday observations – we will be empowered to make better decisions and our relationships with doctors may significantly change.

I really appreciate this video for a variety of reasons. Not only do I think the way these conversations were visualized is cool but it really points out the key words and ideas that are forming this e-Patient movement. When I first started reading about about the ideas to transform the healthcare system, I got excited because it began to focus on the patient, the individual, as someone taking responsibility for their health; as someone who actually wanted to understand what was going on. For me that resonates with the public health sector in which large groups of people are observed.

If a few individuals began leading this charge and spreading the idea of a balanced patient-provider relationship, then maybe this movement would be something of substance. Not only spreading to health policy and empowering those who readily have access to health information but also changing the landscape for those who get the folded arms and shaking heads from the healthcare system. Public health is about people, it’s about reducing health disparities and giving people the chance they need to lead healthy lives. Often times there are walls and barriers preventing that – it’s time to break them down.

Intent is the new demographic – What the Mobile Web Means for Health: Jane Sarasohn-Kahn highlights how people use the mobile web and how that translates into action for the health world. [healthpopuli.com]

Behavioral Economics and Public Health at TED 2010: Paul Tarini of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio reflects on a talk he enjoyed at the recent TED event. Check out Paul’s thoughts on competitions for health innovation in an interview I did with him. [rwjf.org]

GE Healthcare Introduces the Vscan: GE unveils the world’s smallest portable ultrasound device! Below is a video (also on the link) of the Vscan in action – [medgadget.com]

Last year was the year in which mobile technology in health dropped onto my radar in a big way. Attending an unconference sponsored by Katrin Verclas and MobileActive allowed me the opportunity to meet great people and learn a ton about what is being done in the mobile health field. Since then I translated those ideas into a presentation (see below) and have had the chance to stay in touch with those people making it happen.

2009 also saw official interest from the federal government regarding mHealth with the development of the mHealth Summit sponsored by NIH. One of the things I’ve seen regarding mobiles in public health is focused on the developing world and global health efforts. While that initially drew me to the subject matter – I began thinking about how these technologies could be used on a domestic level, here in the United States.

Here are a few projects I’ve seen being put together here in the States mainly with gov’t focus:

• AIDS.gov, KNOW-IT campaign: Texting your zip code to a short code (566948) to gain locations for getting tested for HIV. Here’s a recent post from them on mobile tech in the future.
• CDC, Text Messaging for Health Information pilot: “CDC has launched a pilot project that is using mobile text messages to quickly share important health information about H1N1 flu and other important health topics such as hurricane preparedness information.”
• Text 4 Baby: New mobile messaging program to help inform expecting and new mothers. It’s an educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB).

Really looking forward to seeing these programs and types of programs flourish domestically to leverage the growing use of mobiles.

Feel free to let me know of any other domestic mobile health programs that I should be aware of!

Last week I had the distinguished honor to be interviewed by the always inspiring Rosetta Thurman – a prominent voice around the issue of Gen Y leadership. Rosetta picked out four “Now Generation” Gen Y leaders who she felt were going to be making waves this year.

During my interview, I talk about my background in science/engineering/public health as well as my passion around Public Health 2.0 – which looks at social technologies and cross disciplinary collaboration. I get a chance to talk about how I got interested in the social media landscape and highlight a few organizations that I think are doing it well (AIDS.gov, CDC, Playnormous and HopeLab).

Stay tuned for the next three leaders as they are similarly profiled throughout the month!

If you get a chance to listen, I would love to hear your thoughts on how I did.

Photo Credit: Timmy Faust