Health Technology Forum Meet Up Takes Place in Vancouver

By: Talha Bhatti  |   August 19th, 2013   |   Health, News, O Canada

On Thursday, August 8th, the Health Technology Forum held a meeting for the first time in Vancouver which was hosted by UBC. The organization has branches in major cities which include Dallas, New York, London, Atlanta, Toronto and San Diego. Health Technology Forum hosted its first event in September 2010 and was attended by only sixty four people whereas usually such events attract a large number of people. However many experts and those who are highly respected in their fields were present at the event. “Notable local heavyweights Ayogo and Tyze were represented by Mavis Dixon and Manuel Zahariev, respectively, after Shervin Majd, the SeniormHealth partner at Vodafone Ventures and Innovation Centre broke the ice with an introductory phone call.”

Mavis’s talk focused on howthey have turned medical care in to a game or activity and is based on the Avogo model which is mainly about the role of psychological behaviors on illness and health. Also the talk emphasized on Diabesties which is their program for diabetes patients.

“Someone signs up, or subscribes to the application, they end up coming to the game every day, and that becomes a meta-habit. Out of the metahabit, their little interactions every day get into internalizing behaviours for their disease. You tie in the tiny habits to the meta-habit.”

The lectures by both Dixon and Zahariev were received enthusiastically by the audience and these focused on how important it is to keep into consideration people’s behaviours and attitudes as these companies help people to cope with their illnesses and so their approach is more sympathetic. However, the question and answer sessions mainly focused on the technical aspects of this venture and not on its humanistic side.

On the whole the event was a grand success and even organizers appreciated the effort that was put into this event.The organizers recognized that although these companies cannot go into the depth of medicine right now and make use of all the material present but they are on the right track and carrying out a great function. Ayogo and Tyze were also thanked.

“Our goal is to be running four events per year, to build a larger network of volunteers. We’re thinking that the October event will have a more official kick-off, a slightly larger event, we’ll invite one more speaker, and have a true panel session at the end where we can mingle with experts in the field. The core organizers (of HTF) will come back to UBC at that time, and it’ll be interesting to have them here, because they’ll have a health tech and industry perspective.”

Source: TechVibes