CIMIT blog

Venture Capital Panel Update!

Our recent CIMIT Forum on Venture Capital in Healthcare given by Zen Chu (and panel) is consistently one of the most viewed blogs. Its impact never seems to be lost on anyone who views it and I am consistently fielding emails and requests for more information. So in an answer to everyone's interest we have produced a great new VC panel video, which expands on VC activity and where it is going in Healthcare.

Our goal for this program is to create an opportunity for the Principal Investigator, researcher and science community to be exposed to venture capital aspects of business and investment decisions.

Michael A. Greeley
    General Partner at IDG Ventures and     President of NEVCA

Panelists include:

Bruce Booth, D.Phil.
    Principal Atlas Venture

Graham Gardner, M.D.
    Senior Associate Highland Capital Partners

Johnathan P. Gertler, M.D.
    Managing Director Head of BioPharma Investment Banking Leerink Swann & Company

James E. Muller, M.D.
    CEO InfraReDx, Inc.

See the full video below or click here for the video divided into chapters by question

For Zen's Video Blog click here

And for Zen's Slides click here

The Future of Anesthesia and Critical Care

Multiple forces are affecting the role of the anesthesiologist in the United States and globally. The population of industrialized nations living longer and many more operations are performed on elderly individuals. This population is at risk from the low therapeutic ratios of the general anesthetics in current use and hence will dictate what operations will be performed using which anesthetic agents. The cost of medical care is increasing globally, but perhaps most rapidly in the United States. The increased cost will lead to more scrutiny regarding the need for operations, the quality, utilization and efficacy of care, changes in Medicare reimbursement, the ability of patients to pay and a demand for the use of less costly health care providers when possible. Technological advances are leading to less invasive procedures that can be done on patients who formerly would be ineligible for these surgical procedures.  The presenters and panelists will speculate as to what the practice of anesthesia will be like in the next ten years.

Moderator:  Jeffrey B. Cooper, PhD,  Director, Biomedical Engineering, Partners HealthCare System, Inc.; Associate Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Director, Center for Medical Simulation, jcooper@partners.org

Douglas Raines, MD, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, MGH, draines@partners.org

Dr. Raines’ research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of anesthesia.  He will present the results of recent preclinical studies on a new intravenous anesthetic agent designed be ultra-short acting and to have minimal cardiovascular and respiratory side effects.  This agent is expected to be most useful for use in the elderly and critically ill and to allow more precise control of anesthetic effect.  

Panel will also include:

Emery Brown, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, MGH, ebrown@partners.org

Dr. Brown develops in his statistical research signal processing algorithms and statistical methods to study how the brain and nervous system represent and transmit information. His experimental research uses combined functional magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiological recordings to study how anesthetic drugs induce the state of general anesthesia in the human brain.

Keith Miller, DPhil, Mallinckrodt Professor of Pharmacology in Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School; Director, Harvard Anaesthesia Center for Training and Research; Faculty Member, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Neurobiology and Biophysics Graduate Programs, Harvard Medical School; Pharmacologist, Massachusetts General Hospital, kwmiller@partners.org

Dr. Miller’s research interest is the molecular mechanisms by which general anesthetics produce both the state of anesthesia and their side effects. His current work focuses on locating the binding sites of general anesthetics on neuronal ligand-gated ion channels.

Celtic Ray Allen's Diabetes Message

Please Note: The following is posted under sections 1-4 of Fair Use under U.S. Copy Right Law

Last Sunday Ray Allen thanked the collaboration of hospitals around the country, including some here in Boston, for diagnosing and treating his son with Type I diabetes. The full page ad Allen took out in the June 22, 2008 Boston Sunday Globe is clickable below, as well as excerpts of his transcribed message applicable to healthcare. Reaction and critique are below.

(Click Image for Larger View)

Excerpts of Ray Allen's Message:

…Amidst the excitement of the past week, our 17 month old son, Walker, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, a potentially life-threatening disease that often goes undiagnosed in young children. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Joslin Diabetes Center for their quick action and exceptional care in treating out son…

…My family and I are committed to fighting this disease with the same level of passion and intensity I bring to the basketball counrt. We hope that you are never faced with the news that you or someone you love is threatened with diabetes. However, together we can raise the level of awareness of Type I diabetes and with our continued efforts and prayers we can help alert parents to the early warning signs and hopefully save the lives of childrens everywhere…

Type I Diabetes Warning Signs in Young Children*

• Excessive thirst
• Frequent urination, bedwetting
• Drowsiness
• Lethargy
• Increased Appetite
• Weight Loss

*Provided by Joslin Diabetes Center

I welcome any new readers visiting from Celtic blog to CIMIT and MGH. Please, feel free to comment as you wish.

I think that we can all commend Ray Allen for his actions in sponsoring this message. He is of course not the first athlete to use his personal life and notoriety to further a cause close to their heart in healthcare (Curt Schilling just to name one).

But for me he quietly touches upon one crucial point for healthcare: Competitive spirit. Competition and strategy excite people to accomplish great things and it doesn’t end at the court. If Ray Allen truly takes his competitive spirit into the fight against diabetes, along with collaboration in the field, he will certainly help to make great strides in a disease that is quietly becoming a major epidemic. It could be Allen's presence which will gell the cause to take on more competitive challenges to find solutions just as the X Prize has done.

What we need injected into healthcare, biotech, pharma, and all of the teaching hospitals (especially MGH) is a sense of competition to solve this problems. Competition breeds collaboration and that creates such success as Boston Scientific, Innocentive or FIRST.

Competition will be a driving factor in the solution to many of our greatest health challenges, but what we need is an infrastructure to establish the playing field and nurture that spirit. More thoughts on how to do this will come later. I will ask John Abele to follow up on this with his thoughts.

CIMIT

Future, Shift, Leadership - Change: Video Update

Now that we have our new servers up and running here is our newest video update. Last Tuesday John Abele and Elliott Masie discussed the future of technology, business and leadership in a changing global market. They deal with generational fear and how that conflicts with the instinct to move forward. There is no doubt that listening to these two will cause countless ideas to come pouring out of you, but what strikes me most is the tremendous sense of growth and the positive nature they bring to everything. These two love what they talk about and I think you will too. John is a great guy, self made, humble, caring and when he talks everyone stops to listen. Elliott always brings smiles and twists. He is possibly the most business creative industry learners going.

These videos are focused on healthcare, medicine, science and business, but their reach goes to any and all areas.

The first video is their discussion on future. Elliott decided to use the new iPhone 2.0 as an example. Elliott is obviously deeply connected with the inner workings of Apple and goes over the potential future impact of new feature on iPhone 2.0.

The second video is their overview and update to the viral web slides "Shift Happens" where they provide an updated commentary to the information.

More video updates to come and next will be a discussion on credibility in Healthcare with Andrew Webster.

How to Write Emails People Actually Read & Respond To!

Many times a day over here we write emails to people we don’t know asking them to do something that they don’t owe us. It’s a big part of CIMIT's general business practice and how we operate collaboratively. In this effect we have two goals: 1.) Get people to read the email 2.) Get people to act on the email.

I’m sure we’ve all sent emails before hoping for responses and we face that disappointment when no replies come. It is of course different when the person/people work for us, or with us, but what if they have little or no responsibility to us?

So here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind while writing emails to people you might not know, who might not care much about your efforts and who might feel wonderfully anonymous in a large group of recipients.

1.) The body of the email must be less than 10 lines long
2.) It must be fully and easily readable on a blackberry or handheld (Meaning, text only)
3.) Include a link if appropriate, but only one and make sure it is valuable and easy to navigate
4.) Be honest! I can’t stress this enough. You are not marketing to anyone in an email like this even if you are marketing to them. So don’t speak in that manipulative business marketing speak we all do. Surprise people with your human, friendly voice. Think, how would you write to a friend?
5.) The first line of your email is the most important. People should read the first line and know exactly what the next 9 lines will tell them. Don’t make reading the email a mystery they are trying to unfold as to why they are reading it. The first line of your email should encapsulate the spirit a of the entire email
6.) Next you need to tell them exactly, in very honest terms, what you are asking of them
7.) Follow that immediately by telling them why you are asking this of them. State specifically what value it gives you that they help you. Be honest here as this is where most people start to feel guilty and fall into marketing speak as a way of hiding. People will respond if you are honest here
8.) Use a line or two to describe the details, but don’t keep going. Keep it as short as possible
9.) Finally, let them know what you will do with the action they take for you. Remind them what effect this will have

Finally, two important things to remember:

Don’t be afraid to commit MILD errors in spelling or small typos on purpose. Seriously, it’s fine when appropriate and used correctly. It makes things a little more unique when going out to many people, and it also means the marketing department doesn't have their claws into it (even if they do). It makes us human.

Lastly, combine as many of the steps above as possible. If you can write one line that does three of the major points, do it.

Here is a pretty good, not perfect, but solid example of what I'm talking about. It's something to get you started realistically because the more you do this the better you will get and the more you will hate your inbox. I lifted this from a friend and I have edited it slightly.

-----Original Message-----

From: XXXXX XXXXXXX
To: (Mass mailing list)
Subject: Presidential Leadership Competencies - Input Needed

As a Learning/Training professional, we need your perspectives and input on Leadership Competencies for the Next President of the United States http://www.masieweb.com/presidential

Next Monday, I will be attending a forum at the Center for Public
Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School with a small group of business, political, educational and civic leaders. It will be a focused discussion on the Leadership
Competencies that will be essential for the next President of the United
States.

Your input is extremely valuable to me. As a learning colleague,
would you please take 3 minutes to complete this anonymous survey:

http://www.masieweb.com/presidential

We will then publish a summary of the results, survey and the
discussion for you.

Best,

XXXXXXX

Okay, so coming up: Look for a multitude of media content updates. The servers are fully up and running and I'm getting the videos exported now.

Value Network Analysis

John Maloney wrote me the other day, prompted by an introduction through Andrew Webster of KindBridge Centre, to explain Value Network Analysis. This is admittedly a new concept to me, yet at the same time it is not entirely foreign to anyone in Health care.

John is an internationally respected thought leader in knowledge management and network analysis circles. I recommend reading the first paper on this resource site (A Value Networking Approach by Verna Allee) for a general understanding of Value Networks Analysis.

Here is an edited excerpt of the email John sent me with links added:

Healthcare (and big pharma) are popular ecosystems and established vertical domains for value network analysis (VNA).

There are many examples of excellent healthcare and pharma outcomes using VNA including:

• Reducing scheduling time for heart ablations at Mayo Clinic from 3.5 months to three weeks
• Helping York Hospital develop a patient/family outreach program
• Improving patient and provider communication for a major pharmaceutical company
• Identifying the innovation network that led to Viagra
• Improving distribution of medical research findings for a major government agency
• Reducing shift change errors for nursing staff at a Midwest University hospital
• Improving staff performance for a disease help line

Value network analysis is based on living systems theory. It is designed to address organizational complexity where human communication and interaction is critical for success. Healthcare & pharma is one of the most natural environments for VNA to flourish. It provides a whole system way of modeling the rigorous processes required for safety and service delivery along with the most critical human-to-human interactions and knowledge flows. It helps healthcare professionals monitor the “pulse points” of both internal and external value creating networks, much in the way one would monitor critical indicators for human health. The ValueNetworks.com application provides over 50 such indicators regarding the health of the network. It also easily creates “one touch” visualizations in PowerPoint and Visio to better communicate about organizational and systemic issues. In short, VNA is an x-ray for creating, nurturing and improving flourishing healthcare ecologies.

Important Links:

http://www.value-networks.com/

Here also is an example of how the European Union’s executive branch is using VNA to advance collaborative innovation continent-wide.

Cordially,

John

Well, it's a departure from what we usually supply here, but it's something high-level to chew on for a while. If you have questions comment here or visit John's Blog.

Coming up: Our next post is on how to write an email. Sound simple? Done it thousands of times? We'll see about that.

Wikipedia Healthcare

One of the things we spend a lot of time on here is writing new, and significantly editing, Wikipedia articles with the newest and most up to date scientific and medical research. We hold a weekly forum, which a scientific writer then distills into wiki articles. Here is a collection of some of our more popular articles. Some we have edited significantly and many we actually started.

Biomarker Traumatic Brain Injury Nanocell Bionics Defibrillation Vestibulo-ocular reflex Nanobiotechnology

 Lab-on-a-chip Elderly Care Transurethral resection of the prostate  Optical coherence tomography Selectin Distraction osteogenesis Electrocardiogram

Wearable Kidney Orexin Patient safety Brillouin scattering Drug-eluting stent

We have another 20 already out there in earlier posts. 54 in all. We also have another 20 currently in development. If you have thoughts or ideas for new articles we would be happy to spearhead the move or help.

Mike

The Collective Intelligence Blow Your Hair Back Reading List

We hope to blow your hair back a little with our newest reading list. They are not the unheard of books, entirely the opposite: We just put them in one place. I promise that if you pick up any one of these books you’ll love it. I’m going to put them in no particular order, so pick by the most interesting title if you want because they will change your life. That is a promise I make you. Some of these books will very seriously change your life and the way you live it, but more likely they will change the way you work and interact with those you work with, and the way you want to work.

The Wisdom of Crowds, The World is Flat, A Whole New Mind, Wikinomics, Informal Learning, Here Comes Everybody, Group Genius, Extraordinary Popular Delusions & The Madness of Crowds, The Opposable Mind, Difficult Conversations, The Magic of Dialogue, The Speed of Trust, The Tipping Point, Blink, Bit Literacy, Presentation Zen, The Medici Effect, How Doctors Think, Freakonomics, The Myths of Innovation, Egonomics

And please suggest some as well.

Also, this week we have had a lot of conversations about what makes a great email. Not emails for marketing, but... If you want people to do something. How do you write an email to get people to do something? We've all been there: We want a large group of people to do something, go somewhere, write something, give feedback, etc and no one does it. Don't take it personally, just look for our thoughts and tips on how to write emails people will actually read, respond to and act on. That post should be up in the next few days.

Whether we like it or not, we are all future patients

I’ll start off by saying hello to our newest readers and viewers from India, Italy, France and Canada.

I don’t know if we’ve ever come out and clearly stated our purpose so I want to touch on that. In short: Collective Intelligence, but… Different. We are of course a center within Massachusetts General Hospital as well as a non-profit. CIMIT (In our larger sense) focuses on creating collaborations within the medical community across the globe to develop devices. Hopefully we help… You, but also us. As Elliott Masie recently said in one of our podcasts, whether we like it or not we are all future patients. And that is one of the crucial points to how we think. But before you think this is a statement of marketing or cheerleading, it’s not. No one from marketing reads this or approves it. In fact, we are such a tremendously oddball offshoot that our readership remains outside the walls of regular CIMIT.

So if we are all future patients, if who you love most are future patients, what would you do to make sure the best possible outcomes develop? Anything? Or would you figure out what anything is? And how it works.

Having said that, this blog is different. We of course share our video content, which is in close alignment to what I stated above, but we are not just CIMIT. We are CIMIT Education. A small rogue team within CIMIT dedicated to the new, the effective, the collective and the collaborative. Most people in CIMIT are clinicians, surgeons, researchers and even a few Nobel winners lurk from time to time in our halls – But CIMIT Education is none of that. We teach from the street horizontally. Our world is flat (If you don’t know yet, that is a great thing). And we ask favors of people we have no business asking. We study the strategy of how to effectively harness collective intelligence in any setting be it a meeting, book, video, car ride, partnership, or phone call. We are a small group of people with an incredibly abnormal love of the collaborative, which we apply to healthcare.

We love great meetings (but hate the average meeting), new technology, play, gaming, medicine and we really want to help. In every sense of it, we hope to leave this world better than we found it. We choose to do that by helping people learn to work together not in the “granola” way, but in the very serious way with deliverables and challenges.  And we get to play all day long while we do it. We play with what works and what doesn’t. We figure out how to change, change. We are highly critical of ourselves and we have a brain trust so-to-speak and some those people are: Elliott Masie, John Abele, Lisa Gilbert, Andrew Webster, and many others (Go ahead and Google everyone). But you might ask, what is the problem we face?

The medical world is full of silos. All departments, areas, hospitals and people are split up into their own areas. Everyone in the medical world knows this. They hate one another or at the least, don’t bother working with anyone. In reality, most people don’t bother to pick their head up and look around. But what one researcher is working on might be solved by the byproduct of another clinician the silo over. Imagine someone you loved was sick with lung cancer and you hoped for the answer to come from the researchers working in lung cancer. But what if one of the answers they needed to move forward actually rested in the lab of someone working on a heart pump the room over? What if those researchers knew of one another? What if they never knew?

And that is the point. We will get to those people. We will get to all of them. Hopefully they listen and so far people are getting this like a breath of fresh air. We will get them to talk to one another in anyway we have to and we will produce, but right now we are all figuring it out. Figuring out how we do it, what is best, how we fail and what is needed. This all sounds old, but this is some of the newest thought out there. Our work is in Web 2.0, Social Networking, Podcasts… Anything. Everything. And this blog will attempt to continue documenting these collaborations and logging our evolving thoughts.

Shift Keeps Happening

John Abele and Elliott Masie ran a great session on Shift Happens Tuesday at the forum. The videos will soon be posted here on this blog along with some thoughts and reactions, but in case you haven't seen the slides 6 million other people have... Here you go:

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