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Agents Of Change: A Digital Health Forum was designed to be a conference like no other.

Formerly known as Signing Day (an in-person celebration to welcome startups into the G4A’s Partnership Program), pandemic restrictions forced organizers into creating new opportunities. G4A jumped at the chance to expand their impact and their invite list, turning Signing Day into an all-access conference with a speaking roster of leaders across public health, tech, pharma, government, and finance.

Many of the most costly chronic diseases, both economically and in quality of life, can be alleviated by changes to lifestyle that are notoriously difficult to implement, especially at scale. As such, swapping old habits for new ones - or what we call Behavior Change - is arguably the single most promising sector of healthcare today. 

For 352 million women worldwide the pain associated with Endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) often falls on deaf ears. And for the millions more experiencing Menopause, the disruptive symptoms are written off as “normal.” Women’s pain has long been pushed aside, ignored, downplayed, even relegated to an apparition or a mental health issue. 

The two terms that make up ‘empathetic technology’ seem like antonyms, but their intersection is proving to be a rich opportunity for innovation. At its essence Empathetic Technology strives to bring humans and technology into greater symbiosis than ever before.

The Social Determinants of Health, as a phrase, is polite - a synonym for how income inequality dictates health status. As a concept, it is more complex, encompassing the myriad social structures around us, many that influence our ability to reach actualization. Basic services and our access to them is fundamental (Maslow), beginning with the physiological - air, water, food, sleep, shelter, clothing, reproduction - and safety - personal security, employment, resources, health. The methods for which we fulfill our basic needs is more or less dependent upon financial security.

Bubble baths, long walks on the beach, farm-to-table meals…. As it turns out, these self-love activities are also good for the heart. Stress reduction, quality time in nature, proper movement, and eating well are all part of a heart-healthy regime that your heart will thank you for. Self-love is truly cardiac love. 

This is especially good news because it’s squarely within our power to live well. It’s when the heart isn’t well, however, that cardiac disease can strike. Cardiovascular disease, broadly defined as “heart conditions that include diseased vessels, structural problems, and blood clots,” claims a life every 37 seconds in the United States. Globally, the figure looks more like 17.9 million deaths per year.

Now that we’re well settled into 2020, and the frenzy that is CES and JPM Week are behind us, we have a few predictions about how the next months will go. It’s a unique time in the world. The political climate has pushed us into a state of extreme discourse in which our values must become increasingly precise, while in parallel, the digital health sector has matured significantly. The weight of collective accountability has sparked new avenues for innovation strategy, investment dollars, and ultimately is in service of the patients, the people. At G4A, we anticipate seeing an emphasis on historically underrepresented sectors of the healthcare space, namely, women’s health care issues, addiction, and social factors in big ways in 2020. 

Not too long ago the digital health sector looked a lot like the wild west. Best practices and protocols were established as we went along, both reacting to and establishing a new paradigm of how care could be delivered to the masses. It was much in response to the invention of the internet as to gaps in the healthcare continuum one could drive a truck through, while it simultaneously influenced policy. Today’s maturation of the digital health space has led to remarkable funding growth and more than a few notable IPOs in the last 14 months.

For three days each Fall, the Santa Clara Convention Centers is transformed into a healthcare wonderland, complete with 1,000 of your closest friends in health tech. The on-stage sessions, curated and hosted by Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt of Health 2.0 fame, are always a hit. Their finely tuned sense of how the past informs the future has been cultivated over decades of paying attention, and being in the audience at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference is a crash course in healthcare transformation.