Keynote Abstracts

Professor Jean-Claude Healy, Ph.D., M.D., Director, Office of External Relations and Governing Bodies (EGB), World Health Organization HQ

IT technology must be realized for what it is, a tool. In the past the delivery of healthcare has been affected by technology, resulting in new methods of providing medical care. Now we must use technology to change how we deliver healthcare. This presentation will discuss how we must focus on health vs. healthcare and the key to this is the effective harnessing of health information through the use of analytics.

Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D., Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Scientific Director, Harvard–Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics

This presentation will focus on the role of informatics in expanding our understanding of the basic building blocks of science and the impact that this new information will have on the health and life sciences enterprise.

Robert C. Cresanti, Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce

It is estimated that by the year 2025 the cost to Medicare for Alzheimer’s will quadruple the current cost per patient of $3.2 M. The savings to Medicare of delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s by 5 years would be $120 B to U.S. economy. The cost to Medicare of not delaying Alzheimer’s would bankrupt Medicare. Market projections suggest that brain/computer interfaces will be a $4 B industry within 2 years. Many of these technologies hold exceptional promise to benefit persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities and, with time would significantly improve function in persons with Alzheimer’s, Down’s syndrome and Parkinson’s disease. This keynote address will discuss some of the latest advances, trends and issues surrounding the implementation of technology for healthcare delivery to cognitively impaired persons.

Manuel T. Lowenhaupt, M.D., Partner,Accenture Health & Life Sciences

Healthcare organizations are investing heavily in Clinical Information Systems (CIS). More and more are asking “What is the measurable value of this investment?” This presentation outlines the approach to analyzing the value of a CIS investment including financial, clinical quality and satisfaction. A discussion of decision support analysis as well as a detailed case study on financial analysis and implementation at a leading academic institution serves to share some of the pitfalls and realities of this journey.

Charles R. Denham, M.D., CEO, HCC Corporation, Chairman TMIT

This presentation shows the role of information analytics in healthcare quality and how they may be used by independent (either private or governmental) organizations to improve the quality of healthcare delivery. The talk will discuss how informatics can (and have) change the way that healthcare is delivered and funded.

Professor Dr. Raphael H. Levey, Chairman and Founder, Global Medical Forum Foundation

This presentation will discuss the new responsibilities of the health and life science corporation to ethically manage the clinical information associated with the health consumer. The definition and enforcement of those responsibilities are of ever increasing importance as biomedical science becomes better able to define the clinical and disease profiles of patients and to understand the special risk factors associated with each individual.

John Wade, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Saint Luke's Health System

Amid the growing recognition of the importance of implementing IT technology to better serve the U.S. healthcare system, we must not overlook the need to include the underserved population of healthcare consumers. This presentation will discuss issues and challenges facing the healthcare system when considering how to leverage IT technology to deliver better care to underserved populations. These issues include the practical aspects of providing IT access, the funding and maintenance of this access, the financial impact to the healthcare system if it is not done and the ethical responsibility to include underserved populations as we implement healthcare IT solutions.

Sue Schade, MBA, Chief Information Officer, Brigham and Women's Hospital

This presentation discusses the challenges faced by CIOs in enabling insight for the enterprise. Topics include how to identify and support transformational projects, the issues and challenges faced regarding implementation and support of analytic projects as well as a case study discussing the efforts at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with the balanced scorecard.