Category: News

The afternoon sessions continued an action-packed day, starting with a lively presentation from Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” on what motivates people to change their behavior. He remarked that appealing to a patient’s feelings is more successful in changing behavior than  regurgitating facts. Consequently, doctors should change the way they talk to their patients with respect to chronic but preventable diseases. To him, facts should be presented in a digestible way, which allows the patient to draw an emotional connection to the information.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent from CNN, hosted a panel discussion connecting two seemingly disparate professionals: John Chen, CEO of Blackberry, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO of Nantworks and a cancer researcher pioneer. However, the two are collaborating to take personalized cancer care to new levels. Soon-Shiong’s experience with cancer genomics is being combined with BlackBerry’s specialty in secure mobile communications. Through their partnership, doctors will have immediate and secure mobile-access to a cancer patient’s genome – allowing doctors to provide personalized therapies that treat the specific gene mutation. As a result, this technology allows cancer to be treated more effectively at the molecular level..

This enlightening conversation on personalized cancer care was followed by a spirited panel discussion on the cost of life-changing drugs. John Reed from Roche Pharmaceuticals led the panel, joined by Steve Miller from Express Scripts and Lori Reilly of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Next, Marc Siry, vice president at Comcast, examined how the media can positively impact patient engagement. Siry pointed out that a gulf exists between the media and the medical world – but that doctors can borrow from the media’s ability to appeal to people’s emotions. That’s because emotions change behaviors, and behavior impacts patient engagement and outcomes.

The next session – led by Patrick Geraghty, CEO of GuideWell and Florida Blue – furthered day one’s discussion about how employers can improve the health and wellness of their employees. He and his fellow panelists addressed the economic benefit of employee health programs, using Disney as an example of how new tactics are reaping tangible benefits.

The day ended with an eye-opening discussion on the true cost of mental illness globally. Speakers Husseini Manji, head of Neuroscience at Janssen Research, and Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, outlined the prevalence of mental health issues and the numerous lives lost from it each year. They discussed the need to change the stigma associated with mental health so individuals will more readily talk about it and seek treatment, as with other health issues such as heart disease or diabetes.

Thad Seymour, Jr., president of the Lake Nona Institute, wrapped up the sessions by marveling at the “fire hose” of information that had been shared. As day three dawns, this welcome deluge of data and insights is sure to continue.

Don’t forget to follow the conversation on Twitter us @LN_Institute and join the discussion at #LNIF15.

The second day of the 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum was as wide-ranging and interesting as its 250 attendees.

The jam-packed agenda included engaging conversations on such topics as health clusters, big and small data, consumer engagement (and the role media plays in that effort), next-generation cancer therapy, the economics of health care for employers and pharmaceutical companies, and discussions on brain health. Following are some highlights.

The morning kicked off with an energetic discussion lead by Anil Menon, president of Cisco Systems, about the many attributes needed to create and draw smart minds to an innovation cluster. He cited three as the most important: good weather, access to universities, and a strong infrastructure that allows for easy connection to the outside word – not unlike those featured in the Forum’s host community of Lake Nona.

Richard Carmona, former Surgeon General of the United States, took the stage and provided a compelling look into the future of personalized health and its impact on the quality of care. He explained how patients of the not-to-distant future will have their entire health profile – including genomic profile, activity and sleep patterns, and biometric data – stored in the cloud and delivered in real time to doctors.

During the following discussion, Daniel Kraft, executive director and Future Med health care innovator, dove deeper into personalized medicine by addressing the concept of the “quantified self” and how that translates to quantified – or measurable – health. He explained the myriad devices available to individuals, including HealthPatch, a biosensor that continuously captures biometric data and streams it anywhere in the world. He also introduced the idea of building the Uber of Health care – in short, connecting people to and improving their engagement with their own health data.

Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer of CVS Health Corporation, took the stage and delivered a realistic and sobering view into America’s health care spending, and the toll that chronic yet preventable diseases are taking on the system. He affirmed that health care innovations that feed data back to providers will ultimately improve outcomes.

As the morning concluded, Jeff Arnold, founder and CEO of ShareCare, led a star-studded line-up onto the stage, which included Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of the “Dr. Oz Show,” Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent at CNN, and Mark Hyman, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine. The panelists first discussed whether self-awareness about actual, not perceived, stress truly impacts behavior. They also announced the beta-launch of the Sharecare app, which monitors voice tone on phone calls and analyzes it for stress factors such as worry, anxiety and anger. The crowd-sourced, adaptive trial will be overseen by Dr. Gupta and results will be released at the 2016 Lake Nona Impact Forum.

Visit this website soon for an overview of the afternoon sessions. Don’t forget to follow the conversation on Twitter us @LN_Institute and join the discussion at #LNIF15.

Technogym, a world leading company supplying fitness and wellness products, services and solutions, is a contributing sponsor of the 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum. Attracting notable speakers and luminaries such as Arianna Huffington, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the Lake Nona Impact Forum convenes over 200 thought leaders from business, academia, government and industry sectors who are driving creative, innovative health and wellness solutions, that move the needle on health care expenditures nationally and globally.

“Technogym sits at the crossroads of wellness, health and technology, and our vision to revolutionize health and wellness is well aligned with organizations such as the Lake Nona Institute,” said Nerio Alessandri, President and Founder of Technogym. “Our future depends on people being healthy, and focus on prevention and providing long-term solutions to chronic disease is key.”

Technogym is fully committed to enhancing the wellness goals of consumers by providing trackable and measurable data, including program efficacy and biometric marker changes over time.  Furthermore, through social cause initiatives such as “Let’s Move for a Better World” and partnerships with venerable organizations including the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, and Lake Nona, Technogym is at the epicenter of health oriented movements around the world, including passion causes such as combating childhood obesity.

At Technogym, the mantra of Wellness on the Go, which puts wellness at the forefront of what the company does on a daily basis, is supported by technologically rich equipment and computing platforms that have created a new level of fitness connectivity and deliver measurable health results. Technogym has dedicated years of R&D investment to design the most aesthetic and technologically advanced equipment in the market as well as create the ground-breaking open platform mywellness. This platform allows everyone from consumers to club operators, personal training clinics and corporations to track all their fitness and wellness activities through third party apps, devices and Technogym equipment – and through their mywellness account – to seamlessly measure fitness activities and goals from anywhere in the world.

At the Lake Nona Impact Forum, Technogym will have knowledgeable staff on-site to promote wellness-based activities for the conference attendees. New this year is Technogym’s ‘Chair of Health’ – active sitting Wellness Balls, which will be featured at the Impact Forum to help energize the core and strengthen muscles throughout the day.

App Initially Available Through Crowd-Sourced, Adaptive Trial Led By Dr. Sanjay Gupta; Inaugural Organizational Participants Include Univision, Trinity Health and the Lake Nona Community

Sharecare, a comprehensive digital health and wellness engagement platform, today announced it is launching an app to help people improve self-awareness, personal relationships, well-being and, ultimately, their overall health by analyzing the spectral-data in the tone of their voice during phone calls. Unveiled at the 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum presented by Johnson & Johnson, the Android-exclusive Sharecare app initially will be available through a crowd-sourced, adaptive trial overseen by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent.

“In this new era of positive computing, we want to expand our products and platform to empower people to improve their health every day without disrupting their daily routine, and we’re starting by unlocking the science of voice,” said Jeff Arnold, Sharecare’s chairman and CEO. “We acquired a cutting-edge technology company in qualitative and quantitative voice and text analysis, Feingold Technologies, and developed this new app together to measure stress and, in-real time, improve self-awareness, well-being and happiness. Over the coming months, we are looking forward to going beyond voice, and building on this frictionless approach to healthcare.”

The Institute for People and Technology at Georgia Tech will provide expertise in human-computer interaction research to the trial’s protocol and analysis; and Dr. Gupta will oversee the clinical validity of the unique adaptive trial as its chief architect. Over the next year, Georgia Tech and Dr. Gupta will explore how providing people with real-time feedback on stress, behaviors and relationships analyzed through the tone of their voice will lead them to make positive changes in their lives, transforming stress into happiness.

Given the trial’s adaptive design, aggregated insights will be shared, feature enhancements will be made to the app, and additional partners and populations will be enrolled throughout the duration of the trial. The overall findings from the trial will be revealed next February at the 2016 Lake Nona Impact Forum, where 250 of the nation’s leading healthcare innovators gather to explore the intersection of wellness, sustainable living and education.

“I’ve long been fascinated with the inflection point between neuroscience and well-being, as well as how technology – particularly the smartphone – can fuel human optimization,” said Dr. Gupta. “Combine that with the fact I’m a big believer in the power of self-awareness and happiness, and I was immediately drawn to partner with Sharecare on this trial. I’m looking forward to studying how this kind of technology can improve a person’s relationships and well-being in-real time, and potentially alter the course of their health journey.”

Beyond Sharecare’s registered users, distinguished speakers at the 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum, who this week received a beta version of the Sharecare app preloaded on the ZTE Grand X Max+, are invited to participate in the adaptive trial. Additionally, several organizations have agreed to invite select members of their populations to opt-in to the trial, including the Lake Nona community in Orlando, Trinity Health and Univision.

“We want to give Hispanic America access to useful information and tools that will help them make healthy decisions to improve their lives, and our participation in Sharecare’s trial is another example of how seriously we take that commitment,” said Isaac Lee, president of News and Digital for Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) and CEO of Fusion. “U.S. Latinos use smartphones more than any other group in this country, the Sharecare app not only stands to help millions of Hispanics have more productive daily interactions with their co-workers, friends and family, but also be healthier overall – and that’s something we want for everyone in our community.”

How the Sharecare app works

Users simply talk on their Android phone as usual – while, in the background, the app automatically monitors spectral data alternations in the user’s voice, identifying fractal patterns. Based on these patterns, the technology can determine the user’s mindset and stress type – like worry or irritation. The technology does not listen to, record, store or analyze the actual content of the call; and the user can opt-out at any time.

Following each call, the app presents the user with a visual representation of the intensity and stress type detected during their call, ranging from a calm “green” to a very intense “red” and several shades in between; as well as a short description of their mindset during the call. Additionally, within the Sharecare app, users can access a dashboard showing how their results fare over time, per call and contact. By providing real-time feedback on an individual’s stress, as well as monitoring trends over time, the Sharecare app will increase self-awareness, triggering positive behavior change and helping to improve personal relationships, which will actually improve your health.

As part of the launch of the Sharecare app and corresponding trial, and Sharecare’s acquisition of Feingold Technologies – which was announced today in a separate press release – Erik Feingold, the company’s CEO, is joining Sharecare as Chief Innovation Officer; and Feingold Technologies’ offices in Munich and Berlin will operate under Sharecare effective immediately.

For more information about the Sharecare voice analysis app and the corresponding trial, go to www.sharecare.com/voice.

The 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum kicked off this evening with remarks from Rasesh Thakkar, senior managing director of Tavistock Group, on the topic of transformation.

While Thakkar was talking specifically about the incredible transformation of the Lake Nona community over the last decade, his comments set the tone for the evening’s discussion. Transformation in the way businesses, academia and government think about health and wellness will be at the center of the conversations happening over the next few days at the Lake Nona Impact Forum.

Arianna Huffington, co-founder, editor-in-chief and namesake of The Huffington Post, continued the theme, talking about the transformation in employee wellness happening in workplaces across America. She noted that C-suite execs are openly discussing once-marginal concepts like their meditation or “digital detox” practices. In short, she explained, downtime is no longer synonymous with laziness but an opportunity for renewal.

The conversation continued with Huffington interviewing Alex Gorsky, CEO and chairman of Johnson & Johnson, on how a focus on employee wellness leads to improved employee engagement. No longer is there a disconnect between employee investment and a company’s bottom line. In fact, Gorsky noted their research finds that, for every dollar invested in the employee, the company earns three to four in return. “Investing in our employees is just the right thing to do,” he told delegates.

The duo stressed that working excessively long hours or on the weekends should no longer be considered a badge of honor. In fact, as Alex explained, Johnson & Johnson now has a policy not to answer emails on the weekend, unless it’s specifically stated as urgent. It’s these small but powerful changes to the vernacular of the workplace that greatly reduce employee stress levels and improve workforce engagement.

Transforming from a country based on sick-care to one of well-care was another prevalent theme throughout the evening. It was introduced in the context of Johnson & Johnson’s Human Performance Institute, based in Lake Nona, which studies patients’ specific motivation for recovery – and that leads to structured behavior, which allows them to reach their goals.

Innovation in the delivery of health care and practice of wellness was a conversation that began tonight in presentations from leaders at Guidewell and Garmin. Dawn Iddings of Garmin introduced participants to Vivofit, a wearable wristband that tracks activity and personalized activity goals. She announced the Impact Forum Step-Challenge, in which delegates will have their steps logged over the course of the Forum and displayed on a leaderboard. It was noted that our inactivity as a society is comparable to the issue around smoking in the decade before. Garmin is advancing consumer technologies to encourage healthy living and inspire active living.

Richard Carmona, the 17th Surgeon General of the United States, discussed ongoing concerns about the cost of America’s health care system and called the third Lake Nona Impact Forum “just what the doctor ordered” to challenge the existing way of doing things and bring disruptive ideas to create a sustainable and healthy world.

The “transformation” is underway, with more to come Thursday and Friday at the Forum.

Remember to follow us @LN_Institute and join the discussion at #LNIF15.

Today it begins! The eagerly awaited 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum presented by Johnson & Johnson is underway at Lake Nona Medical City.

With 250 of the nation’s top CEOs, academics and health care leaders in attendance here in Orlando, they are engaging in collaborative, meaningful conversations – through interactive panels, thought-provoking presentations and networking opportunities — that will further inspire impactful health innovation.

From CEOs to academicians, corporate scientists to government officials, media titans to health care pundits, the breadth and depth of speakers, panelists and participants is stunning. Their dialogues and debates are sure to lead to big ideas that will motivate the next generation of new technologies and programs for healthy, sustainable and inspired communities.

And what better place to host such a forward-thinking group of the world’s foremost health care leaders than Lake Nona, which FORTUNE Magazine has called a model for the next great American city.

We are grateful to presenting sponsor Johnson & Johnson and our 21 other sponsors for making the 2015 Lake Nona Impact Forum happen. Return here often for updates throughout the three-day forum, or follow us on Twitter @LN_Institute or using #LNIF15, on LinkedIn and on Facebook.

Lake Nona Institute is pleased to announce Garmin International, Inc. as a new sponsor for this year’s Lake Nona Impact Forum, which will be held February 2015.

Garmin International, Inc. is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd, a category-defining company that designs, manufactures, markets and sells fitness devices to help people achieve their health goals since 1989. As a global leader in its market, Garmin is known for its compelling quality and best-value items, including the new vívofit activity tracker.

Garmin joins other innovative health and wellness companies including presenting partner Johnson & Johnson; Founding Sponsors Cisco, Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation, Guidewell and Tavistock Foundation; as well as Contributing Sponsors Florida Hospital, Insurance Office of America, Nemours, PepsiCo, PwC, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, USTA, UCF College of Medicine, and UF Health; and Session Sponsors MediFit and Technogym.