Patients take the spotlight May 17 to share creative health care solutions
What’s the Fix? (#WTFix), the only health care event to feature patients who have circumvented the system to overcome obstacles and drive change, announces the speaker lineup for its second annual conference on May 17, 2018. Co-presented by HealthSparq (@HealthSparq) and the Design Institute for Health at Dell Medical School (@DellMedSchool), What’s the Fix? is creating a patient-focused movement to “kick the hell out of health care,” by inviting the industry to learn from creative and inspiring stories, including a patient who developed his own lifesaving surgery and a father who designed a robotic arm for his daughter, and other individuals who have developed their own solutions and hacks to health care’s greatest challenges.
The event will take place at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin and will also stream live online to a global audience with innovative and interactive connections between all attendees.
“In rethinking health, we invite and elevate the patient voice and role in their care – and ultimately in their health,” explains Dell Medical School Dean Clay Johnston. “That’s why this conference that spotlights stories of real people is so aligned with our approach.”
Registration is free and open to the public. The What’s the Fix? 2018 conference agenda includes:
Opening: The Power of Stories
- Jeff Rediger – Using Amazing Stories of Amazing People to Drive Change in Health Care
Morning Sessions: The Power of the Person to Make Change
- Bryce Olson – Sequence Me: Using Precision Medicine and Music to Fight Cancer
- Mette Dyhrberg – Unsolved Mysteries: Finding Patterns to Solve the Impossible
- Doug Lindsay – Bedridden No More: Inventing a Surgery to Save Your Life
Afternoon Sessions: The Power of Community to Make Change
- Karen Ranus, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez and Father Charlie Garza – Mental Health Panel: It Takes a Village
- Bodo and Lorelei Hoenen – When Barbies Fly: Using Social Innovation to Solve Problems
- Paula X. Rojas – By Us, For Us, About Us: Creating a More Just and Loving World
Closing: The Power of Change
- Toyin Ajayi – Radically Improving the Health of Urban Communities, One Block at a Time
“Everyone has a health care story, and our 2018 speakers are bringing their own to the table to inspire real change,” comments Burt Rosen, What’s the Fix? event organizer and HealthSparq CMO. “We started this event because the industry has a lot to learn from real people facing real challenges in health care. As advocates for themselves and their families, they have become tireless, inventive and inspirational problem solvers.”
Join What’s the Fix? on May 17, 2018 at Dell Medical School in Austin, TX, or live online via web stream. To view speaker bios and event information, or to register, please visit whatsthefix.info.
About HealthSparq
At HealthSparq, we empower people to make smarter health care choices by partnering with health plans to provide members with cost and quality information about doctors, hospitals and medical services, based on their individual benefits. We put people at the core of everything we do by conducting continuous usability testing, eliciting consumer feedback to enhance product development, hosting industry panels featuring everyday people, and bringing human stories to the forefront through our #WTFix campaign. Using these insights, we create solutions to help people understand and navigate the health care system better than ever before.
Growing since our founding in 2008 from our home in Portland, Oregon, we now serve more than 95 health plan brands nationwide.
About the Dell Institute for Health
The Design Institute for Health, is a first-of-its-kind institute born from the radical collaboration between Dell Medical School and the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. It was established because health is one of the last frontiers to embrace design as a creative, human-centered approach to defining and solving problems.
Through design, we provoke every aspect of health systems to work better for people. Our embedded team of health design specialists uses creative problem-solving methods to deeply understand the needs of patients and providers, generate fresh systemic approaches, and rapidly prototype and realize solutions.
About Dell Medical School
Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin is revolutionizing the way people get and stay healthy. Dell Med is the first medical school in decades to be built from the ground up at a Tier 1 research university. Created in unprecedented partnership with local taxpayers, who in 2012 voted to support the vision of improving health and making Austin a model healthy city, the school is focused on harnessing the power of innovation, technology and partnerships to modernize academic medicine, create new clinical care delivery models and foster a thriving research environment.