Comments on: Healthy Competition: The Importance of Contests for Health Innovation

By: Insert Coin: The Health Game Idea Challenge

Insert Coin: The Health Game Idea Challenge — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:44:27 +0000

[...] what I mentioned regarding the importance of competition for health innovation? Well the good folks over at Humana are definitely aware of this and have recently unveiled a new [...]

By: Lygeia Ricciardi

Lygeia Ricciardi — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:34:11 +0000

Hi Andre —

I liked this post a lot. It inspired me to do a related post on the Project HealthDesign site http://tiny.cc/xYVMJ looking at the role of crowdsourcing in healthcare in general (not specifically public health, though I agree that area is very ripe).

I think the recent amplification of contests and other kinds of crowdsourcing (in health and beyond) is due to changes in IT and how we use it (like twitter). While all of this is exciting and holds great potential for creative problem solving, we’ll need to find new ways to process and choose efficiently from an ever-growing pot of information and ideas.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:13:41 +0000

Fantastic article Andre. Great depth of examination and wide source of applicable ‘nuggets’.
I couldn’t agree more that not only is the physical (including web-based) landscape shifting in Public Health, but the social landscape is also shifting in the way practitioners, researchers, and consumers experience Public Health.
While technology is a huge catalyst for this, I think it would be short sighted to slap 2.0 on the back with an atta-boy.

By: Dale Zak

Dale Zak — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:19:19 +0000

Wow Andre, fantastic post! There was a lot of discussion about healthcare this past weekend at Mobile Tech 4 Social Change in Halifax. Your comment “shipwrecked on the SS Obsolete” is bang on:

“A new generation, a new guard of public health leaders and innovators will most likely emerge using these tactics and the ones who do not begin to at least attempt to get on board with a cursory knowledge will be shipwrecked on the SS Obsolete”

Somewhere along the way, we’ve created walls (aka policies, regulations, boards, red tape) which are now limiting innovation. I believe we need to take a step back and ask ourselves; are these walls helping us or hurting us?

I agree, competitions are an important way to break down these walls because they really challenge the norm. But equally important, are people like yourself, spreading the message of hope and in the process, inspiring others.

By: Phil Baumann

Phil Baumann — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:33:30 +0000

Excellent overview of what we can expect (or at least hope for) as more of us realize what we can do. Too often I think we dwell on what we can’t do, or what’s wrong with our health care system, so it’s refreshing to view this as a healthy race to better lifestyles.

I do think social software and social communities can provide the conditions and resources for increasing awareness of public health, creating global and local initiatives for supporting healthy lifestyles and enhancing communication throughout the entire health care distribution chain.

User design and experience is as much an imoprtant feature of high quality health care as it is in software design. We don’t often think of design in our health care system, but it’s central to the problem of providing the best conditions for healthy living.