Congressman Raul Ruiz Visits TEDMED 2015 to Discuss Improving America’s Health

Congressman Raul Ruiz and TEDMED Chief Operating Officer Shirley Bergin. Photo credit: Jarod Harris

The Honorable Congressman Raul Ruiz, representative of California’s 36th district, visited the 2015 TEDMED conference on Friday, November 20th. The Congressman is a medical doctor whose background includes working abroad in Mexico, El Salvador, and Serbia, and serving as an emergency physician at a nonprofit hospital in his district’s Coachella Valley. Congressman Ruiz is dedicated to improving health care and addressing health disparities, topics that are closely tied to TEDMED 2015 host city Palm Springs. Palm Springs is an exemplar of a city with a strong, functional health care system: it is a highly diverse community with high quality, accessible health care providers.

TEDMED has announced that their 2016 conference will be held in Palm Springs again next year.

Another Option is proud to be a part of TEDMED 2015.

TEDMED 2015 Kicks Off in La Quinta

Article originally written by Barrett Newkirk for The Desert Sun – November 18, 2015.

Health and wellness reporter Barrett Newkirk can be reached at (760) 778-4767, barrett.newkirk@desertsun.com or on Twitter @barrettnewkirk.

The annual meeting of minds known as TEDMED got underway in La Quinta on Wednesday with hundreds of attendees hearing from a diverse lineup of experts discussing work that often overlaps medicine and technology.

The annual conference, which is the independent and medically focused offshoot of the TEDTALK series, continues through Friday at the La Quinta Resort & Club. As many as 800 were expected to attend, many of them students, medical professional or entrepreneurs.

Chris Bi, a cancer drug researcher with Pfizer in San Diego, took a moment to snap photos of palm trees lit up at night just before the first round of speakers began. Bi said he came to hear from innovators who may help his own research, but also to get exposure to people working in areas far different from his research lab.

“I want to see how things can intersect to help with work in a lot of fields,” he said.

For those who can’t attend in person, live-streaming events are happening around the world. Talks will also be posted on the TEDMED website after they’re completed.

Physician Pamela Wible speaks at TEDMED 2015. Photo credit: Jerod Harris/provided photo

Speakers Wednesday ran between humorous and deadpan serious. They included people working with the latest in human gene technology and a part-time cardiologist/part-time folk singer who is about to have her second child.

Family physician Pamela Wible began her 15-minute talk in a light mood before calling an alarm on the medical profession.

“I love the three things that people fear the most,” Wible said, “death, disease and public speaking.”

She then discussed the problem of physician suicide, reading suicide notes and showing photos from three cases. She said it’s “medicine’s dark secret, and it’s covered up by our hospitals, clinics and medical schools.”

Conference speakers Karen Stobbe and Mondy Carter stood in the conference’s social lounge after traveling from North Carolina. Their work also crosses unusual boundaries. They use techniques from improvisational theater to help caregivers relate with Alzheimer’s patients.

Stobbe explained that like with improv, caregivers often need to follow someone else’s lead.

“If you’re on stage and someone says ‘I have a duck in my room,’ and you say ‘No you don’t,’ you get into a horrible argument on stage,” she said. “With Alzheimer’s, if someone says ‘I have a duck in my room,’ you go see the duck in their room.”

Stobbe and Carter’s talk is set for Thursday morning as part of a session all about the human mind.

Conversation with MakerNurse Co-Founder Anna Young at TEDMED 2015

Article originally written by Tom Fowler for Medgadget – November 20, 2015.

MakerNurse co-founder Anna Young

Anna Young, co-founder of MakerNurse, is bringing rapid prototyping tools into hospital units to enable nurses, other providers, and even patients to problem-solve with innovative do-it-yourself labs within hospitals, with the end goal of ultimately improving patient care. Anna and her team at MIT’s Little Devices Lab bring rapid prototyping tools into hospital units creating “Maker Health Spaces”. They recently spunoff Pop Up Labs, a privately held company to take these tools to scale across clinical environments. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, MakerNurse aims to empower nurses and bring nurse “making” to helm of changing the face of health care. I had the opportunity to meet with Anna at this year’s TEDMED conference in Palm Springs, CA, to talk about her work.

Tom Fowler, Medgadget: So Anna, have you always been a tinkerer?

Anna Young: I walked into MIT as a trained economist 6-years ago and it was there that I learned how to teardown medical devices, learn how they work and modify them through design and prototyping. If I could do it, I knew anybody could do it. That became my main interesting: how do you develop democratizing tools for medical device design and prototyping.

Medgadget: What type of traction do “Medical Maker Spaces” see in hospitals? What percentage of nurses will take the leap of faith into becoming device developers?

Anna Young: Across the board, 1 in 5 nurses is what Eric von Hippel will call, a “lead user”, they are faster than a device firm to identify a gap in a product and to spot an opportunity for problem solving. Hospitals are loving the notion that they get to transform themselves from problem spotters in need of design and engineering partnerships to developers of their own solutions.  And it’s not just traditional research hospitals. Our biggest opportunities are in regional and community hospitals with large volumes of patients.

Medgadget: Provide an example of one awesome, and one terrible product that has come from a Maker Health Space.

Anna Young: Best example, wearable google to control hydration in eyes for burn patients.  Worst example, an anatomical wound model that burned through 5lbs of 3D printer filament only to create a very awkward looking mold. To be fair, we love both of them. We think everyone deserves the chance to experiment and prototype. I’d rather see 20 failed prototypes than 1000 post-it notes of ideas for products that never get created.

Medgadget: Does this model have legal dilemmas running into the FDA?

Anna Young: We shepherd the prototyping process to make sure our medical makers meet every regulatory guideline at different levels. Whether it’s an internal IRB study or a 510k submission. Our Maker Health Spaces come wrapped with an ethical and legal advisory board that makes sure the prototypes meet regulatory guidelines. That means that you can prototype a device, take through an internal research study to learn how well it performs and be faster at designing its pathway into patient care.  At the end of the day though, safety is always #1.

Medgadget: If I donated $1 billion to you for any project, what would you do?

Anna Young: Build a network of lending libraries of Maker Health prototyping kits around the country so that prototyping tools become more accessible and we remove the digital device in health technology.

Tom Fowler worked as a programmer in the healthcare IT industry before settling back in school to learn how to become a doctor. He likes to dabble with biotech startups, write postcards to his relatives, and play his ukulele. He was a TEDMED ’13 scholar, has published research in biomedical informatics, and continues to advocate for international maternal and child health. Currently in the SELECT MD leadership program at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Another Option is proud to be a part of TEDMED 2015.