Aneesh Chopra: Keynote Address

John Eastman of WebLAB, gave a quick spiel about his company before introducing Aneesh Chopra, the Chief Technology Officer for the US Government.

Chopra asked how to introduce innovation; separated out analytics and personal experience and that seemed to be the way to go. He outlined three pillars of innovation strategy:

1. Next-generation infrastructure. We as a nation are successful when we invest in the building blocks of innovation: more secure infrastructure, introduction of better cybersecurity, etc. How do we ensure we have the skilled workforce in this area of technology?

2. How do we catalyze technology for our nation’s leading areas? Healthcare, etc.

3. Economic success is all about entrepreneurship; in this time of economic difficulty, the role of the entrepreneur will be key and to grow/encourage innovation.

He ended his talk with the term “open government.” Make sure that we shift the culture of federal government to reward innovation! Unlocking CMS and VA data. What data sets would you like to get your hands on? In a month, week, year? Help the government understand how to move the ball forward. We have to make progress in 90-day and 120-day increments. Came from VA; it is a commonwealth, not a state. Commonwealth is the notion that all the rules, there is a great more to do when we think of each other as friends and families to enable small initiatives to get traction in the market. Introduction of an application for mobile health coming soon; hope to embrace the spirit of “commonwealth.”

These are game-changing innovations to the healthcare sector.