This week CIMIT hosted the CIMIT Innovation Congress 2007. With more than 600 attendees, we had a full house at the Back Bay Events Center.The energy in the Exploratorium, Power of Virtual Experience, Poster and Concurrent Sessions was palpable. I connected with clinicians, scientists, engineers, students, professors and executives. My sense is that folks were engaged, inspired and connecting with new people.
The CIC07 keynote, Victor Dzau, and panelists: Meyer, Everett and Labresh reminded me that driving change in healthcare includes not only improving tools and systems in intensive care units and inpatient hospitals, but serving outpatient clinics, rural communities and global neighbors, particularly China and India whose developing middle classes will demand increasing attention to health. Suggested references: 2005, Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind, 2006, Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat, and the decade old, 1997, Frances Cairncross, The Death of Distance.
I played Remission – a video game for young people with cancer – and imagined the potential for psychological and placebo effects of games and learning for all ages. My video game skills are highly underdeveloped.
Wendy Everett adjusted my framework by highlighting an imbalance published by the Institute for the Future in 2005 - that 50% of health status is determined by personal behavior, but only 4% of healthcare spending is directed at teaching healthy behaviors.
http://www.nehi.net/CMS/admin/cms/_uploads/docs/ACF50B.pdf
Maybe through CIMIT, Connected Health, the Power of Virtual Experience and serious games, we can engage collaborators to design and implement tools to reduce and prevent behavior-related illness.
Lynn R. Osborn
Massachusetts General Hospital
CIMIT Education Director
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