2022 Schedule

Who is vulnerable, how bad does it get, how long does it last?

America’s robust biomedical ecosystem and the therapeutic advances it has introduced are making remarkable progress against cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other serious illnesses. But much more needs to be done to ensure that all communities can access the treatments and care they need. Prohibitive costs, ingrained biases, healthcare deserts, and distrust in the medical system born of past abu...

New insights into human biology and the ability to manipulate molecules both large and small are rapidly accelerating medical innovations. By employing genetic engineering to empower immune cells, scientist-physicians are bringing new treatment options to people with cancer. Mapping the neural circuitry involved in mood disorders points the way towards deep brain stimulation as a successful therap...

The United States is experiencing a critical shortage of healthcare workers—with labor market data showing a 3.2 million worker deficit by 2026. The growing crisis is causing disruptions across the healthcare landscape, but novel care models and new technology show promise in revolutionizing care delivery. How are hospitals leveraging existing technology and teams to reimagine the care model and r...

We’ve gone way beyond fitness trackers to collect information about our bodies’ physiological processes. Wearables are being designed to detect early signs of Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory diseases, identify signals of insulin resistance, and warn of blood pressure changes that could signal pregnancy complications. Some devices don’t even have to be attached to the body—they use remote se...

Whether we are using apps to count steps or talking to our doctors via video, most of us are already familiar with digital health in some form. But innovation at the intersection of health and technology—with its promise of improving health outcomes, enhancing patient satisfaction, and strengthening the healthcare system—is just getting started. Not only is technology better enabling care but more...

The nursing crisis is a healthcare crisis. Reports across the country are ominous –70% of nurses are reporting burnout, 32% are considering leaving the profession, hospital RN vacancy rates are 19% and accelerating. And the pipeline for new nurses is choked – nursing educators are leaving in droves, resulting in 80,000 highly-qualified prospective students being turned away each year. Without ski...

A cyberattack can disrupt a hospital’s oxygen supply, disable cancer-fighting radiation therapy, divert emergency vehicles, and force surgeries to be canceled. While data security has received a lot of attention, the risk that hackers will hold basic healthcare services hostage has far greater implications for patient safety. Ransomware attacks have already struck hundreds of hospitals and are ris...

While vaccine development was swift to combat COVID-19, just 60% of the global population has been fully immunized and viral variants remain a deadly threat, underscoring the importance of strengthening the “last mile” in vaccination. Ensuring equitable access to vaccines, overcoming structural obstacles to distribution, and combatting vaccine hesitancy will require cross-sector collaboration and...

Modern medicine, with its prescriptive clinical guidelines, electronic health records, time pressures, and reimbursement complexities, too often leaves both patients and their doctors feeling dissatisfied. A movement is afoot to rejuvenate the healthcare ecosystem so that it works better for everyone. By aligning incentives that champion wellness and rewarding the quality of care, rather than the...

In the face of the pandemic, technology became an important part of how we accessed care almost overnight. Suddenly, physician video consults became standard practice, tests and devices were routinely used to diagnose and monitor disease at home, and new software was connecting people with the information they needed from the convenience of their phones or tablets. This changing landscape elevated...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to grapple with a long-standing truth: that poor diversity in early and late stage medical research remains a major threat to health equity. Overcoming barriers and challenges to fair representation in research and development will not happen overnight, nor can it be achieved by a single institution. In order to pioneer lasting and sustainable changes in the...

More than 14 million Americans live with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, yet the availability of urgently needed treatment is completely inadequate. In Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health, author Thomas Insel offers a pathway towards wellness built around what he calls the three Ps—people, place, and purpose. A psychiatrist, neuroscientist, a...

Virtual Presentation: Imagine a doctor being able to watch, in real time, as white blood cells attack cancer cells in a patient, or seeing exactly how the leukocytes replicate as they fight off the cancer. It would fundamentally change how they understand and treat disease. Today, the technologies that would enable this kind of understanding do not exist—nor do the academic systems that would ince...