Best Practices Every Medical Conference Should Embrace

(I rarely do a list post, but could not help myself today (blame it on my daily reading of @Cracked…)

I often attend medical conferences and hear about the best practices applied within medicine, but I rarely hear about best practices applied to the medical conference itself.  In a world of often shrinking budgets and limited bandwidth, we must choose carefully which conferences we should attend.  Embracing some of the suggestions below can make an event a must attend inspirational and renewing moment in our lives and careers.

1.     The standing table, lounging chair and the walking meeting

I recently returned from a wonderful roundtable discussion on clinical trials in Indianapolis.  We had great conversations about open data and patient participation.  The only bad part of the meeting was the back pain I began to suffer after sitting for a few hours.  I am among the ever-growing group of people who work at standing desks.  So staying seated is a special kind of agony.  Fortunately, I am also without a modicum of decorum and had access to my huge suitcase, so I made a standing table MacGyver style during the meeting.       

Some conferences already provide standing tables around the back of the room and I say kudos to you!  Health 2.0 is one, but if you know of others please give them a shout out in the comments section.

On the flip side of the coin of attendee comfort is the lounging couch.  As we invite more and more patients to medical conferences it behooves us to remember, many attendees are listening while in pain.  I applaud the all the conferences that offer a cool down or comfort room where attendees can recline.  But sadly, such rooms rarely have access to the content feed of the live sessions that are ongoing.  Medicine X is the first conference I have attended that offered lounging couches to any who needed to rest while taking part in the live event.   It was rather epic to see that level of inclusion.

Another great addition to the conference venue is the walking meeting.  My friend Ted Eytan, MD introduced me to this gem.  Don't feel your conference has to be contained within four walls.  Go "on the lam" in a official capacity and have some of your breakout sessions outside while walking.  It is incredibly refreshing!  

2.     Inviting e-Patient Scholars and Patient Advocates

The ePatient movement is really expanding.  More and more patients are taking a hand in their own medical futures and helping shape health policy.   Their questions during Q&A sessions often change the direction of the conversation of the conference itself. Their keynotes and panel speeches help other attendees to express their own personal health stories.  Many of these patients and advocates have very strong social media profiles and their live-tweeting of events has exposed conference conversations to the wider world.  Look no further than Medicine X to see the enormous potential of e-Patients to spread the content of a conference.  

“But where do I find such e-Patients?” I often hear in response. Well @speakerlink is a great place to start looking for potential attendees and speakers.  Another avenue is participation in online discussion groups on Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn.  The future in medicine is "Patients Included." 

3.     You must list your #hashtag on Symplur

I can talk about the power of twitter to spread your conference message until I am blue in the face, but without analytics to support my point it is only so much hot air.  Thank you Symplur Hashtag project for providing proof of the power of conversations.  For free.  I ask conference managers to please to list their conference hashtag on Symplur.  Symplur will archive those tweets for easy access and provide  analysis of the day.  Your data will add to the ever-greater haul of big data available for analysis to determine trends within healthcare. If you do this prior to your conference it is a great tool for pre-promotion.  (If you wait till the day of the event attendees like myself will often do it for you, but don’t count on that as a back-up plan)  

It is a win/win situation.   Now all those ePatients can tweet and spread the conversation and you have proof of the level of spread.  You just have to focus on how to fund those e-Patient Scholars.

4.     Crowdfunding at the Medical Conference

Hosting a medical conference is expensive.   It is somewhat terrifying to know you have to come with thousands of dollars to make your vision of a conference a reality.  Even a conference run on a bare bones budget will cost about 25K.  Sponsors are great if you can get them (thank you Cerner!) and a well established conference often can.  For the rest of us crowdfunding is a godsend.  I personally have worked with both @medstartr and @Healthtechhatch for crowdunding in the conference world.  We focused the crowdfunding effort on travel and lodging scholarships for e-Patient scholars.  Working in partnership with a non-profit in line with our conference mission was a great help in securing funds.  

But the power of crowdfunding attendance to enable participation in continuing medical education is not limited to conference organizers.   E-Patient scholars and patient advocates should consider this route to cover their participation expenses in health conferences and classes that do not offer sufficient scholarship options.  A proof of concept is our dear friend @AfternoonNapper who has done so much for the role of the patient in the world of medicine.

5.     Traitwise surveys are the way to go.

So how many of you look at that after-conference response survey in your email in box and whoop with joy?  I bet very few of you do, unless it is a @Traitwise survey.   Not only does Traitwise have a pleasing graphic interface and font selection not reminiscent of the early 1990’s, their surveys are fun.  They keep you in the loop and informed on how your response fits into the greater data set of the conference.  And after you complete your conference survey, you can keep going, filling out survey after survey for the good of mankind.  One of my fellow e-Patients did exactly that after the Partnership with Patients conference.  They broke the record for most answers in one session with over a thousand.  (Another reason you should invite e-Patients: We are very giving people.)

6.     Teach attendees how to live-tweet

One of my favorite quotations is probably misattributed to Sen. McCarthy:  “Beware of Artists they mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous.”  Yeah, artists specialize in mixing it up, but to do that they need a forum. 

Nowadays Twitter is that forum, for artists and everyone else.

If you are running a medical conference for the good of your attendees and the wider world of medicine, you have several goals.  You want to break even.  You want people to have an enjoyable time.  But most of all, you want people to walk away inspired to make this world a better place.  In healthcare, many individuals feel they do not have a voice in policy discussions.  I am not just talking patients here.   I have spoken to a great many doctors and nurses who feel like they have worked to make a better system for 20 years without sufficient progress.  They are discouraged and feel alone.  I challenge all of you conference planners to get them live-tweeting, to help them realize there are hundreds, even thousands who think as they do. 

I have attended two conferences wherein the conference planners designed an entire webinar around teaching attendees how to live-tweet.  One of these events offered a webinar and 1-800 number support to walk attendees through the entire process.  The conference organizer

offered raffle items at the event that attendees who live-tweeted were eligible to win.  So many new twitter voices joined a wider conversation due the efforts of one conference planner. 

Do you want your conference to live beyond the after-conference survey?  Do want your attendees to act upon the content they absorbed?  Then help them tweet; help them discover the voice they always had.

Remember, online the Q&A never has to end and the microphone is accessible to everyone. 

#HIball

On December 20^th I walked upon the streets of New York.

I had just checked in to my hotel room. It was small, just enough space for a bed. I changed into my Walking Gallery jacket and left for the gala. Alex Fair and folks from the NY chapter of Health 2.0 were going to sell art in the hope of help raising money for charity.

As I walked down the street, darkness fell.  Vast piles of trash bags lined the avenue. My footsteps echoed on the wet pavement people were rushing home from work and school. A big sister walked with her little sister. Then a caregiver guided a child with autism past a looming bin and passerby. I looked for the club where we were going to host the gala.

Columbus 72 was a small club sandwiched between many buildings. I went down the steep stairway into the basement of the bar.  For a night it was to become a winter wonderland. Paper snowflakes and lights filled the air and structural poles were beribboned like candy canes. Across the room, I saw Alex Fair in his winter themed red and white sweater. He greeted me with a smile and a hug.

The club was just finishing up a start up health incubator. People filled the room as I pulled out two paintings that I bought as additions to the auction.  The room was filled with the large pieces from the UN non-communicable disease summit of September 2011.  The works of multiple artists were on display and we were tweeting under the hastag #HIball.

I also brought The Walking Gallery jacket for Esther Dyson.  Esther soon showed up and I smiled as gave her the jacket. Then Brian Sivak CTO from HHS arrived.  Esther was our moderator as we talked about the future of healthcare.

I was surprised when I began to speak how a few members of the crowd were willing to be quiet. Even with the microphone it was quite challenging to be heard as the crowd drank, ate and conversed over our words. Esther and I asked people to please be quiet so others attendees could hear. Esther did a great job explaining what was going on in cutting edge health.  Bryan focused on the future of current measures at HHS.  As we wrapped the conversation, I asked the crowd if anyone would be willing to save a life.  In the few seconds of quiet after the question a few hands shot up.  I followed the question up by explaining an individual who would be an organ donor would need a care partner in New York.  If he could get a care partner he would be able to save another’s life.  I was so happy to see several people come forward and express their willingness to help.  I happy to report he now has a care partner.

Soon the art Auction began.  John M. Luke Jr. from Storage Wars New York was the auctioneer. He and I exchange some comments. I explained that I had spent my youth working in flea markets and was quite comfortable with the work of helping an auctioneer.  We worked side-by-side, I explaining the art as he began the auction process. The room was full of individuals working for start-ups, grad students and people working in health tech space. There were not a lot of high dollar folks in the crowd, so a great deal of the art was sold at affordable prices. My only concern was the loudness of the conversations in the room. I didn't think most people could hear what we had to say. I did ask them many times to be quiet and listen.  I found it so funny that adults were having trouble learning the lessons of a preschooler. We did manage to sell the majority of the art which was great in itself as the art had been in a storage locker in New York for the past year.

I also was honored to meet Walking Gallery member Wen Dombrowsky's husband whom I had heard so many wonderful things about. I took a picture of them together. I met some lovely people in New York who are working on healthcare.

 

I thank Alex Fair from Medstartr so much for us all he did to get the art out of storage, auctioned and delivered. This precious art could've been thrown away or destroyed, but was saved because of this caring and loving man.

As the evening festivities wrapped up, I left the club and went back into the New York night. I went back to my small hotel room and slept. In the morning the weather was poor. In the pouring rain and winds, I tried to hail a cab but was unsuccessful.  I went back into the Comfort Inn hotel where I was staying. The lovely front desk clerk named Penny called car service after call service. No one was taking fares.  Finally she called a driver she knew and he said he could take me to Penn Station.  I caught my train and got back to DC in time for my younger son's Christmas party at school.  I was so glad that the art gala saved some art from destruction and so glad I was able to make new friends and visit old ones.

Calling all Patient Advocates

Calling all Patient Advocates!!!

Want to come to the Partnership with Patients Summit in KC September 21-23, 2012?  Need help with funding to get there?  The Society for Participatory Medicine a 501c3 non-profit is creating a scholarship fund and Pat Salber, MD decided to help.  She is currently launching a crowdfunding site called Health Tech Hatch that will enter public beta on Sept. 4.  It is currently in private beta and people are already pledging to support the fund.  She writes about the program here. 

You can register for the Partnership With Patients conference here.

Please spread the word!  This is a conference that is being designed with patients in full partnership with providers and venders and I really hope you can attend. 

So to make this super clear (with a little help from the amazing Trisha Torrey on editing)

Are you a patient who would like to apply for a travel scholarship to the Partnership With Patients Summit?

The Society of Participatory Medicine will be awarding 10 scholarships of $500 each.  Here are details and how to apply:

Write a (no more than) 500 word essay of why you should be granted a travel scholarship to attend the Partnership With Patients Summit.  Why should you be the person who receives the scholarship?  What can you offer to the people you connect with?  What can they offer you? What do you hope to do with what you learn? 

If you have your own blog, then post your essay on your blog, and tweet the link to Regina Holliday ( @ReginaHolliday) or post the link on her Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/regina.holliday )

If you do not have your own blog, then send the post, contained in an email (not attached) to Regina at  reggieart123@yahoo.com  She will post your essay here on the Partnership with Patients website.

Deadline for submission is midnight, pacific time, September 8, 2012.

The essays will be reviewed by the committee at the Society for Participatory Medicine and winners will be notified by September 16.

Good luck!

Questions?  Contact  Regina Holliday at Partnership with Patients

@Medstartr

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."
~Leonardo da Vinci



Medstartr: a Poem and a Painting

We sit at u-shaped tables, round-tables, head tables. 
We talk of health.  
We sit within hallowed halls and gilded ballrooms. 
We attend summits, conferences and symposiums 
in a desperate need to change the world of care.

And we talk, talk, talk.  

We shiver in rooms too cold 
and shake from impatience more than chill.  
My dress shoe tap, tap, taps 
a morose code of fury, 
that three years have passed and yet we talk.

When my outrage can no longer be contained 
I text, text, text.  
There are others like me, 
who refuse to sit still.  
We will turn these tables.

We plan to act, act, act.

We've found the wisdom of the crowd,
to fund our disruptive treason
and confound the reason 
of those who think change can only come from up above.

Because we love, love, love
Those whom we've lost.
Those whom we sought
Who sadly thought
that you could talk, talk, talk.
and stop the grieving.

We are those who seek backers
whilst our backs press against the wall.
We will not retreat
as you retweet
our clarion call to act, act, act.