OMG CES BBQ

January 18, 2023 - By Lizzie Dunklee

Health 2.0 was so excited to be able to have TWO team members out in Las Vegas last week at CES. It’s always great to see and play with new health technology - and with over 1000 people stopping by the Digital Health Summit this year, we’re sure the innovation will just keep coming! While everyone is doing their roundups, here’s ours:

• Holy interoperability! I love interoperability. In fact, I believe that at the Happy Hour Meetup after a day at the Digital Health Summit, I declared “I’m an interoperability junkie!” Well - color me delighted when I was able to sit down with two different alliances dedicated to interoperability in health care. ANT+ is a device technology that allows for the collection, transfer and tracking of personal activity and have the ability to connect with other partner devices. Our friends at Continua Health Alliance were there as well, establishing a system of interoperable personal teleheatlh solutions (one of which was featured at Health 2.0 last fall!) It’s great to see these companies (even competitors!) coming together. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

• They’ve called in the Army. The keynote at the Digital Health Summit was Colonel Ron Poropatich, MD, Deputy Director for the Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC). Keep an eye on TATRC as it’s leading the way in government adoption of technology, telemedicine and “unplatforms” - and the immense amount of data that they’re collecting.

• The simplest things are sometimes the coolest. Walgreens recently launched an iPhone, Andriod & Blackberry app that can automatically refill your prescription by using your camera phone to scan the barcode on your bottle. If you’re traveling you can also use this feature to refill your prescription at a local Walgreens.

• Devices everywhere! BodyMedia is using technology and wellness to provide monitoring for the general public. They highlighted the arm band monitoring system which is worn during sleep, exercise and daily activity to receive constant data and assist in improving overall wellness. Zeo was there showing off their sleeping monitoring device as well, and our friends at Withings were there debuting their new baby monitoring system - as well as their wireless scale that can connect to your facebook or Twitter account to track your progress.

• Burritos = Inspiration? United Healthcare introduced their iPhone app that will help you find a doctor in your area using certain specification and parameters, see ratings and reviews, and schedule appointments. They compared the simplified process to using the Chipotle iPhone app to order your favorite burrito and pick it up at the closest location.

• Celebrity sightings galore! CES brought in 50 Cent (wireless headphones), Lady Gaga (Polaroid products), Common (Blackberry), LeVar Burton, Oliva Wilde (Blackberry), Piers Morgan and more to come in and talk about their developments and addictions to cell phones, cameras, head phones and more. But where were the celebrities talking about their health, their wellness, their exercise routines? I’m looking at you, Jillian Michaels.

Video will be made available from the Digital Health Summit sometime in the next month.