Health IT is one of those innovation sectors that is exploding around us here at Xconomy. Every day we’re hearing about a new company, or health-related website or gadget, or experienced financier who’s getting into the act. It’s still pretty early, but it won’t be for long. And the Northwest is already positioning itself as a big player in this complex field. (Just look at top business leaders like Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and Nick Hanauer getting involved with Seattle healthcare firm Qliance, for example.)
Which is why Luke and I are particularly psyched as we gear up for our Seattle event on May 12 titled, “How Information Technology is Transforming Medicine and Healthcare.” This half-day forum is loaded with more than a dozen expert speakers who are using IT to create more effective medicines, help consumers monitor their health, enable providers to deliver healthcare more efficiently, and store and analyze the vast piles of data from our genomes that are the key to the future of medicine. (See Luke’s recent preview of the event and speakers here.)
Coming on the heels of our successful Boston healthcare IT event earlier this week, I’m particularly pleased to highlight a couple of recent additions to the Seattle program here.
—Peter Gelpi, the CEO and co-founder of Seattle-based Clarity Health Services, is working to make referrals between doctors a much more efficient process, through a simple Web-based interface and a deeper understanding of the health community. That’s just part of the story, though; Gelpi, a veteran of Aldus, Adobe, and MedOrder, will tell us more at the event.
—Sujal Patel, the CEO and founder of Seattle-based Isilon Systems, is finding that biomedical and genomic data storage is one of the fastest-growing markets for his company’s technology. As of last fall, the medical and health sector made up about 10 percent of Isilon’s revenue, thanks to A-list customers like Merck, Sanofi-Aventis, the J. Craig Venter Institute, and the Broad Institute.
What do these folks have in common with our other invited speakers, like Don Listwin, the former No. 2 executive at Cisco and founder of Canary Foundation, Rod Hochman, the CEO of Swedish Medical Center, and David Cerino, general manager in Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group? They’re all using IT to help create the future of healthcare. Come find out how on May 12 (registration info is here).
