KHIT Health Information Technology blog: Health 2.0 2013 final day

The final day of Health 2.0 2013 was off the hook. Matthew and Indu are amazing. The entire roster of presenters was amazing. The staff and volunteers were amazing. The A/V tech crew was amazing. The food was great (but the far-out, groovy, healthy rice milk and soy milk and no-fat/low-fat milk -- seriously? seriously? I'm with Matthew on that issue. Note to self; bring your own next year).

The receptions were great. My wariness regarding "Big Data" has been materially abated. My jaw is sore from repeatedly dropping to the floor over the Nokia Sensing xChallenge winners. "Disruptive," indeed. Sell your Quest and LabCorp stock (cut your losses) or short them (make money on their demise).

The youngsters presented as "Rising Stars" make me feel old and slow. Scary smart 23- and 24 year old CEOs. Where the hell did I put my hemi-walker and Metamucil?

Fred Trotter is scary smart. Love the new haircut, too, bro.

I want one of those OM Signal body biometrics shirts. Like, today. Where do I send the check?

My skepticism with respect to "employee wellness programs and apps," though, has only hardened. As I commented on September 24th on THCB:

Interesting post. Tomorrow I have to get up early and submit to some “Wellness Screening” stuff at my wife’s company, so that we get some “rate discount.” Having retired from my REC gig, I’m now on her insurance. Just gonna smile, play ball, and not make any waves for now, I guess.

I would speculate that, were we able to do a sound scientific study, we’d find that MOST U.S. companies are organizationally/psychodynamically toxic, places where one speaks truth to power at one’s peril (notwithstanding all the cherubic blather about “openness” and “safe culture”), places where backstabbing org chart climbing are rife, places where the bookshelves groan under the weight of books on “leadership” and “empowerment” and “team building.”

That, sadly, would characterize my last place of employment — a QIO, REC, and now HIE (for whom I worked 3 times spanning 20 years, noting an accelerating change for the worse). It was a factor in my “retirement” in April. They’d started into this lame HR-driven “wellness” “Re-Education Camp” initiative this year that was pure Dilbert Zone. I pretty much ignored it.

Wallpapering pretty “wellness” laminate over toxic business cultures is gonna do little more than decrease operating margins.

I’ve worked for seven employers across my white collar career. Only two of them could be considered culturally non-toxic.

Other stuff: A huge, irritating disappointment; the cancellation of the Health 2.0 ONC Town Hall owing to the absurd federal government shutdown. Farzard and his people had to return to DC Monday night.

Another irritant: endless barrages of "This data," "that data," "the data is" (I know; the "data are" battle is largely lost). And, everything is now "curated."

I'm back home, to the delight of my dogs. Fresh half and half in the fridge. Hundreds of photos to review and triage, much narrative commentary to ponder and write up. Bear with me. This may take a couple of days to fully reflect upon.
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FINAL DAY PHOTOS

I will eventually get names affixed to most of these faces (I hope; the action was intense and fast-moving).