Author: Judy Wang

SXSW Interactive 2015: Our future selves, a maturing health tech industry and why failing is productive

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SXSW Impact Pediatric HealthJudy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In 2012, when I attended the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference for the first time, health tech was still an emerging field. It was the first year the world’s leading conference for emerging technology and digital creativity made any effort to include health tech programming, and the first time its Accelerator pitch event included a category for health tech startups.

Only three years later, SXSW Interactive (March 13­–17, 2015) has grown to include almost 50 events related to health and medical technologies. Martine Rothblatt, CEO of the biotech company United Therapeutics, gave a keynote titled “AI, Immortality and the Future of Selves” that was both inspiring and provocative. She spoke to a world in which our 24/7 selves are increasingly being captured digitally. Audience questions captured by Twitter pondered the ethical implications of what Rothblatt called “mind clones”: future mechanical beings digitally programmed with our mannerisms, habits and memories.

This year also featured the Impact Pediatric Health pitch competition, captured in this Storify. …

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HD1829: Advancing telemedicine in Massachusetts

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Massachusetts telehealth legislationJudy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

This post is a frank call to action. Massachusetts is one of the few remaining states in the country that does not provide coverage for telemedicine services through its Medicaid program, and credentialing and reimbursement issues have helped limit the expansion of telehealth programs at Boston Children’s Hospital and beyond.

That could change. Legislation supported by Boston Children’s Office of Government Relations, filed on January 16, includes a bill that would advance and expand access to telemedicine services across the Commonwealth. …

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Pitching pediatric innovation at SXSW Interactive

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Pitching pediatric digital health innovationsJudy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

A major theme at Taking on Tomorrow 2014 was the difficulty in making the business case for innovation in pediatrics, since the market size is small relative to the adult market. Muna AbdulRaqqaq Tahlak, MD, CEO of Latifa Hospital in Dubai, was among many who urged innovators to collaborate and aggregate their data to make the most impact.

It’s in that spirit that the upcoming Impact Pediatric Health Startup Pitch Competition (March 16) was born. Hosted by organizers of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference in Austin and the four top pediatric hospitals in the country—Boston Children’s, Cincinnati Children’s, Texas Children’s and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia—the event will identify the most promising digital health and medical device innovations for pediatrics. …

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Hacking sports medicine in Qatar

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MIT Hacking Medicine Qatar

Judy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Student leaders from MIT Hacking Medicine had invited me to join a weekend health care hackathon in Doha, Qatar. We had taken our show on the international road before, to Uganda and India, but this hack (November 20–22, 2014) would be our first in the Middle East and the first focused on sports medicine. In partnership with Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), a member of the Qatar Foundation, this hack brought together students, athletes and health care professionals to solve sports medicine’s most pressing challenges. …

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What happens after a medical hackathon? Lessons from two winning projects

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Judy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

hackathons
Hackathons create ideas and excitement, but then reality sets in.

Much has been written about the successes that result from medical hackathons, in which people from across the health care ecosystem converge to solve challenges. For example, PillPack, which formed out of MIT Hacking Medicine, recently closed an $8.75 million funding round. But is this a realistic snapshot of what happens after a hackathon? We took a look at two of the 16 teams that competed at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Hacking Pediatrics last year. …

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What’s driving millennials to health tech?

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Judy Wang, MS, is a program manager in the Telehealth Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is currently serving on the Mayor’s ONEin3 Council, which works on projects dedicated to maximizing the positive impact that young people have on the City of Boston.

young health tech entrepreneurs
(ITU/Rowan Farrell creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode)

If you Google the term “millennials,” you’ll see that Google automatically fills in such search terms as “millennials lazy,” “millennials spoiled,” “millennials trophy kids” and “millennials entitled.” Ouch.

As part of the Mayor’s ONEin3 Council and a Founding Hacker for MIT’s H@cking Medicine, I could not disagree more with this assessment of my generation. I’ve observed young people increasingly drawn to civically minded work with public impact—including work in health tech. …

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