Yesterday Jen and I had dinner round Fisherman’s Wharf after we arrived here in SF. Pretty weird eating seafood at 6.30am Amsterdam time… but it’s a nice place. Unfortunately it was too dark (and I was too jetlagged) to take a stroll around, but I will definitely do that the next few days.  Maybe the best part of the evening: the cab ride over to Fisherman’s Wharf from UN plaza. My! I know that San Francisco was a kind of a ‘hill city’ but it’s extreme! Walking in that part could easily be compared to mountain climbing (well in The Netherlands for sure, where we have like, no mountains. :-) The cabbie told us the breaks on the cabs get replaced every 10 days! Thankfully he just charged us for the ride and not a new set of breaks :-)

Today is pre-conference day packed with meetings and parties. There’s rehearsal stuff going on this morning and then lunch at Soluna cafe with more healthcare tweets. After that there’s the Health 2.0 accelerator meeting, more preparing/rehearsal at The Marriott and than the VIP party after that. Well yes it’s hard being in SF, no doubt :-)

I’m very much looking forward to meeting all the people coming over. Already on Twitter there’s lots of people are queuing up at airports or already in town (look for the tag #health2con). I’ll be volunteering at the conference but I’ll definitely try to cover it live where I can (on Twitter, on Nexthealth or here). There will be lots of demos and interesting apps being shown, but I’ll also be on the lookout for the larger scheme changes in healthcare, connecting online and offline and patient with professionals. I think there’s lots of inspiration here to do a followup on the Nexthealth paper: reaching consumer-centric care.

Let me know if you’re in town and like to meetup! Also for your European people: I’d love to talk with you about what we could use in Europe… Is there room/interest for a conference like Health2.0 (focusing on entrepreneurs) or are there different needs?  Speak out here or IRL at the conference!

Thanks again to all of you who have attended my colloquium (in person or online in any form). I’m really stunned by all your nice reaction and congratulations!

When the presentation is done I’ll update you with the grade and devote a proper posting to the topic afterwards to summarize the findings. After lots and of sleep and party first I guess… (not in that particular order :-)

Thanks to the University of Twente and The Decision Group for making this research possible.

Friday October 10th, 2008, I will present my research on the value of business models for hospitals. It will be a presentation aimed at a broad audience, from laymen to experts (at least I’ll try :-) after which you and my supervisors will have time to ask questions and discuss. You are very much welcome to come listen and discuss about this on Friday October 10th in Enschede (NL)!

This colloquium is the final part of my master thesis research and also concludes 7 great years of studying and lots of other activities at the University of Twente. So come along and celebrate :-)

It all will take place Friday, October 10th at the Ampitheatre of the Vrijhof Culture Department (Vrijhof building 47, University of Twente, Enschede (NL) - see here for directions or Google Maps). It starts at 10.30am and will take until (approximately) 12.00pm. You’ll probably want to grab something to eat after that so I will arrange for lunch before you head back home. Or you can stay and catch Joost’s talk about Reducing throughput times at the radiodiagnostic track (at the NKI-AVL), which starts at 3:45pm, after which we will organize drinks together in the “Theatercafe” - round 5pm.

If you want to come and join the conversation, please do. You’re welcome! Drop me a line if you would like to stay for lunch so I know how much to order :-) My contact details - if you don’t already have them - are under contact.

See you at Friday, October 10th, 10.30am! (or if you can only make it for lunch or drinks you’re welcome too of course :-)

P.S. and if you’re wondering what I’ll be doing next. It’ll surely have something to do with this and things like this and this. But let me know if you have anything interesting you’d like to discuss :-)

At Nexthealth, we use a database and graphic UI to organize knowledge so users can organize their health choices. Nexthealth is literally the launch pad and the landing site for healthcare decision making. It’s a neutral, free interactive process for anyone who needs to make a healthcare decision - consumer or producer.

You won’t see ads on our site. We don’t charge subscription fees and are organized as a nonprofit. We’re a credible, trusted, ‘helpful’ partner in consumers’ time of need. When your health is on the line, a lot of emotion and subjectivity is involved.

This model supports rapid decision making in very stressful situations. We provide a logical, rational, clear scaffolding that guides you through making tough choices in tough times. But we’re not making diagnoses, we’re not a ‘recommendation’ engine. Think of Nexthealth as an objective exoskeleton, providing the framework to break healthcare decisions down into manageable bits and pieces.

We start directly with the consumer searching for health decision support. Througout the process we facilitate navigation to other resources with health-related information we do not provide ourselves, but rely on trusted Health 2.0 partners to architect. We refer users to these partners.

Armed with that information patients go about the next step in the decision process, which is further defining what’s important for their decision. The end of a user’s interaction with the model is when they subjectively determine that they have made their decision (”Click the button”).

Let’s take a closer look at the experience of being a patient. With a devastating diagnosis, a consumer is suddenly required to evaluate options for treatment based on personal life goals. Most of us don’t know we have choices in healthcare until that terrible moment arrives.

Suddenly, you need to be able to decipher a stunning array of options - which hospital is the ‘best’ for this condition? Which doctor is rated highly by patients and has a low malpractice rate? Where can I talk with other people who have lived through something like this?

Say you go to Google. Good luck sifting through search result for ones that mean alot to you. Current search engine optimization techniques sell the consumer short - we value search based on keywords, terminology, rather than the meaning each word has, the impact a diagnosis has on our daily lives. We can’t search for healthcare resources based on the decision we need to make - right now we can only search based on the phrase someone else determines has meaning and relevance.

Who or what is there to help consumers make these decisions in an objective way? Right now? No one. Nothing. But Nexthealth fills the gap between current services, content and community online, and how consumers move towards action, the do/buy decisions required to go forward.

At Nexthealth we don’t judge your decision. We don’t put any limits on the process. Bring your baggage. Have a seat. Use the tool for as long as it takes. As many times as it takes. We walk you through four specific, concrete steps to arrive at a decision. When to start, stop, communicate, or abandon the process is entirely up to you. Like decision-making in the real world - maybe you’re not ready to take the next step. Don’t worry, no pressure.

Bring a box of tissues, your anger and confusion. We’ll help you bring simple, welcome clarity to the process of determining where you are now, and provide the support system that helps you create a roadmap to where you’re going next.

Need help making the decision? At every step of the way, Nexthealth gives you the option of connecting with Health 2.0 content and community sites that support your decision process. We’ve done the due diligence and provide partners without commercial bias.

We don’t charge you anything to use the Nexthealth tool. Ever. And we don’t sell, rent, or give away your information. We firmly believe the tools to make better, more informed healthcare decisions should be open-source, in the public domain, available at no cost.

The only thing we’re selling is the barn-burning concept that you have choices to make in healthcare. Who’s in the driver’s seat? You are. We’re the wheel, the brakes, the chassis. How fast you need to travel is up to you.

Are you ready to map your next steps? 3.2.1. Liftoff.

It’s your health - what’s next?

Jen McCabe Gorman and Maarten den Braber
Toronto, september 2008

There are 180 people attending from 19 countries :-) Got an email from Rashmi Sinha (Slideshare CEO) asking for everyone presenting at Medicine 2.0 to put up their presentation on Slideshare and tag with medicine20.

UPDATE: I’ll try to add links to everyone liveblogging or reporting from the event. Let me know in the comments if you’re also liveblogging so I can include your site!

• Peter J Murray
• Berci Mesko (ScienceRoll)
• John W. Sharp
• Jen McCabe Gorman
• Neil Versel
• Rod Ward
• Kate Jongbloed

Tomorrow I’ll be flying out to Toronto for Medicine 2.0! I’m quite thrilled being able to go there and present the Nexthealth paper Jen McCabe Gorman and I wrote (originally for SWWS ‘08). You can check the conference proceedings for the paper. Also we’ll be presenting the Nexthealth model which Jen has been particulary busy with coordinating and building. We’re presenting at 1:30pm on Friday - come along for a not-so-regular interactive presentation and for the very least taste some original Dutch “drop” :-) That is of course if I can get it past customs…

I’ll try to report live from the conference, but am not sure how well all the internet connection stuff will be. If all works well I’ll be posting here and on Twitter. Ah well, we’ll have a blast anyway. It will be fun to meet all those with new insights on how to innovate healthcare (hi Berci :-)!

In the meantime I’ve packed all my gear and will try to do some thesis writing on the plane while probably listening to Harry Potter (read by Stephen Fry - great fun, I’ll probably have to do an extra post about good audiobooks another time) or Hans Zimmer’ soundtracks, also great :-)

See you in Toronto? Leave something in the comments if you’re also coming and would like to meet!

Eventually I managed. Juggling. I learned from a friend who’s to say the least, talented at it. It came after one or two days of picking up the balls, trying for an hour and then giving it a rest again and doing something else. I’m now looking at the set of juggling balls I learned that with in front of me. Realizing that I’ll probably have some similar experience with this blog and everything around it.

I’m good at doing several things at the same time. I’m not a one project guy. That’s fun - most of the time. It’s less so if you’re busy writing a thesis or actually having to focus at one thing thing now. Than your life becomes somewhat like a vicious cycle.

But for some funny reason I both like and dislike being scattered amongst all kinds of different projects and ideas at a certain time. Sure - it would be best to first finish that thesis (yes, yes, working on it… :-) but at the same time I probably couldn’t get it right if that would be the only thing on my mind.

So that’s why you’re viewing this :-) Procrastinating from thesis writing eventually gets the blog work done. Actually not bad timing so I can use it to report next week about my trip to Medicine 2.0 conference in Toronto (drop me a line if you’re also attending and would like to meet up!).

And after that? We’ll see I guess - hopefully the thesis will be done sometime soon so I can invite you all to hear my colloqium on “Rethinking the hospital: value of the business model theory”. And in-between you’ll probably hear some more on being involved in a healthcare tech start-up, event-engineering stories or gadget reviews. Or not - that probably means I’m juggling some other projects :-)

It’s a magical world. Let’s go exploring!