David Harlow (aka HealthBlawg – blog, twitter) will be at HealthCamp Boston 2012. As his kids never tire of observing: here he is again, “disorganizing” another “unconference.”
Please tell us a little about your day job.
I’m a health care lawyer, consultant, blogger and speaker. I work with health care facilities, provider groups and related enterprises and entrepreneurs on a wide variety of regulatory and business matters. This field is always changing, but the rate of change has definitely picked up in the past few years. Currently, a large portion of my practice is devoted to online businesses dealing in user-generated and patient-focused information and health care – the Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 businesses of the world – and the privacy and security issues they face.
What are you passionate about?
I’m passionate about my family, music, bicycling . . . and the ever-changing health care landscape and its denizens. In addition to law, my background is in public health, so I am particularly interested in seeing that the tectonic shifts in the regulatory environment happening these days, and the innovation in the health care space, all serve the social good of improved access to health care and improved health status on both the individual and societal levels. I am active in social media and work with folks on health care social media issues. I would like to see social media and mHealth applications break the behavior change barrier and motivate people to improve their own health status more consistently.
What are you doing to “hack” health care?
In my spare time, I am active in the Society for Participatory Medicine and I am a member of The Walking Gallery. Through both of these endeavors, I’m trying to wake people up to the issues around patient empowerment, patient engagement and patient data. My day job also touches on a bunch of “hacks” not unrelated to these issues, including payor and provider structures and relationships that can promote patient engagement and improve health outcomes – and I get great satisfaction out doing what I can to help clients’ innovations along. In addition, by promoting the use of health care social media, I hope to help providers and patients break down silos and communicate more effectively.
If you blog, or would like to blog, about current health care issues, please get in touch: I’m on the advisory board of HealthWorks Collective, a group health care blog that syndicates health care blogs and features original content as well, and we’re looking to add bloggers representing “the world’s best thinkers on health care.”
Why are you attending HealthCamp Boston?
I want to see and hear what’s happening on health care’s cutting edge and meet the folks who are making it happen, and HealthCamps are often the best forum for doing so. I really like the concept, and that’s why I wanted to bring HealthCamp back to Boston after a too-long hiatus (our last one here was in 2009). The HealthCamps I’ve been to have been so energizing, and have provided a lot of food for thought. My hope is that every “camper” leaving this HealthCamp will have a to-do list inspired by the day.
If you were to lead a session, what would it be about?
I am focused on privacy and security these days, so it would have to be in that wheelhouse. At Medicine 2.0, I’ll be speaking about the tension between (a) the perceived need for greater privacy and security, heightened standards and enforcement and (b) the value of greater openness in promoting communication that can lead to improved health care and health status in manners both planned and serendipitous. That’s top-of-mind for me this week.
What kinds of people do you want to meet at HealthCamp?
Old friends … and new people! And with the national and international crowd rolling into town for Medicine 2.0, I think I will meet that goal.
See you at HealthCamp Boston!
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