Accelerating consumer-focused health: the Health 2.0 - Info Therapy Conference

Posted April 22, 2009 by Lygeia Ricciardi 

I’m writing to you from the “Health 2.0 Meets Information Therapy” conference in Boston. The conference is very relevant to readers of this blog in its emphasis on health, information, user design, and user-generated content (and Project HealthDesign is, in fact, a conference sponsor). 

Last fall I attended the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco. What I enjoyed most was the opportunity to learn about and meet people building and actually running a variety of creative Health 2.0 companies. (There several definitions of Health 2.0, but the basic concept has to do with collaborative, participatory healthcare that is generally consumer-oriented.)

This time, given the recent announcement of the 2^nd round of Project HealthDesign’s grants, I’m interested not only in seeing what’s out there, but also in spreading the word about and encouraging people to apply for grants.

As you can imagine, particularly in this economic climate, the word “grant” attracts a lot of interest: everyone is looking for funding, yet resources are scarce. And a wide variety of types of organizations, including for-profit companies—are eligible.

But I think it’s important to also emphasize the non-monetary benefits of being a Project HelathDesign grantee. For example, grantees are part of a community of peers and experts who help to hone and improve their ideas. They have numerous opportunities, through structured workshops and other activities, to learn from other teams of grantees and from experts in the field. (In the first round, the Project hired Sujansky and Associates to develop a set of platform components to meet the specific needs identified by grantees.) 

Another goal of Project HealthDesign is to help to shape the development of the consumer-health field, both by sharing its own findings (see for example the e-primers from Phase 1) and by educating policymakers about the changing health landscape and its many implications, including social and ethical ones. In the last round, grantees travelled to Washington DC to meet with members of Congress after a coaching session that helped them convey their ideas is Washington-speak. In the next round, the emphasis on helping to inform policy will continue, and we will also be encouraging grantees to use the vehicle of this blog more often to get their voices out to a broader public.

If you are on the fence about applying for a Project HealthDesign grant or need help forming partnerships with other organizations, we can help, as can our partners at the Health 2.0 Accelerator, a non-profit collaborative and match-maker associated with the Health 2.0 conference. I’d also encourage you to attend one of the webinars about the grants coming up in April and May.