OrganizedWisdom Interview with Health 2.0 Conference Co-founder Indu Subaiya

We were lucky enough to beg and borrow some of Indu Subaiya's extremely limited time this week to do a wrap-up interview after the hugely successful Health 2.0 conference last month.

Indu Subaiya is one of the leading thought leaders of the Health 2.0 movement. She has worked with a wide range of life-science and healthcare companies helping to translate innovative ideas and early-stage technologies into market realities.  Indu, an MD and MBA, is the founder of Etude Scientific, and previously served as Vice President of Healthcare and Biomedical Research at Gerson Lehrman Group where she facilitated due diligence research in the life sciences sector for investment fund managers and as Director of Outcomes Research at Quorum Consulting, Inc. where she conducted Phase III-IV quality of life and pharmacoeconomic studies and advised clients on commercialization and reimbursement strategies for novel drugs, medical devices and diagnostic tests.

Indu is the co-founder of Health 2.0 Conference with Matthew Holt.  You can read her blog here.

OrganizedWisdom: You and Matthew Holt helped ignite the Health 2.0 movement by launching the first Health 2.0 Conference in the fall of 2007.  You've just completed the third Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and it was the largest event ever.  How would you sum up each of the three events?

Indu Subaiya: The first Health 2.0 event was a total surprise.  I think we were caught off guard by the interest and the momentum.  It was as if all this incredible activity was going on anyway in different parts of the world and we just happened to hold the first party where these people who were doing interesting things came together in one place.

My biggest takeaway from the second event was how much new technology there was compared to just 6 months before.

And the event we just had in someways was the biggest surprise.  While the rest of the world was going through and still is going through the biggest financial crisis, over a thousand people still showed up more enthusiastic than ever about the potential for this space.  We were totally humbled.

OW: Why did you and Matthew first decide to launch Health 2.0?

IS: I think because we wanted to meet and hang out with people interested in what we were interested in.  Matthew has been a longtime analyst and observer of all things healthcare and was beginning to write about Web 2.0/Health 2.0 and I'm a huge web fan and had the entrepreneurial bug in a big way, so together it was a good match.

OW: The next Health 2.0 conference is going to take place on the East Coast for the first time.  How will the fourth event be different from the first three?

IS: We're really excited to be partnering with the Center for Information Therapy and Josh Seidman on this event.  The group at InfoRx has been focused on patient education and empowerment for a long time and we're having a lot of fun discussing the challenges and tensions between the user-driven aspects of Health 2.0 and the information 'prescription' themes in the Information Therapy movement.  But we also share a lot of common ground.

OW: At OrganizedWisdom, we've always described Health 2.0 as simply being about innovation.  How do you define Health 2.0 today?

IS: I think that's a great definition.  I agree in many ways.  I won't attempt to create yet another definition about Health 2.0 - you should link to Matthew's and Ted Eytan's and Scott Shreeve's.  But to me, Health 2.0 is about the consumer first and what happens when consumers create powerful, self-organizing communities without an institution in charge. It's about uncompromising transparency, fairness and common sense utility of various services. Somewhere at the core of it it's realizing that each of us really has ownership over our health...and lots of things come out of that basic concept.

OW: Running the Health 2.0 Conference and Blog, you and Matthew have a great perspective on new start-ups.  What trends and innovations are you most excited about?

IS: There's a lot to be excited about.  I love seeing the power of horizontal communities surpass the power of any one individual or institution. When PatientsLikeMe accumulates more robust data than many post marketing clinical trials just by lay people entering in information about themselves because they're inherently motivated to do so ...that gets me excited.  When I see anyone trying to make doctors more accessible, accountable and responsive to consumers/patients, I'm all for that.  The work you are doing with LiveWisdom, what American Well and Minute Clinic and Hello Health are doing, also the power of a Yelp or Angies List where doctors behaviors as well as credentials are totally exposed and discussed without them being able to control the message...all that's helping to move things in a better direction.

OW: How do you think the economic downturn will impact Health 2.0 companies

IS: I think Health 2.0 companies are businesses first, so unfortunately I think this will be a painful time for many.  Financing is harder to get for sure.  Getting customers to spend money will be harder.  But at the end of the day, health isn't going anywhere.  And we're kind of on this irreversible path toward the healthcare system improving in all the ways we've been discussing, so I think the downturn may slow the pace but it won't change the course this collective community is on.   Also, my bet is it's a great time to recruit talent!

OW: Both you and Matthew Holt have your own ventures in addition to Health 2.0. Can you share any details about what else you are working on?

IS: Believe it or not, preparing for Health 2.0 conferences behind the scenes has become more than a full time job for us!  Matthew will be working on a report/analysis service with a great group of consultants, called the Health 2.0 Advisors.  We're both helping the amazing Julie Murchinson and Aaron Apocada get the Health 2.0 Accelerator off the ground. Matthew continues to run The Healthcare Blog and I might be working on a video interview series.  I've been lucky to work with some really smart people on a medical records sharing site - it's a young project and moving along at a slower pace with everything else going on, but I still believe we haven't solved the problem of consumers who have to deal with multiple doctors in different clinics and hospitals and getting them to communicate about their case, while allowing the consumer to stay abreast of things.  So I supposed I'll be plugging away at that solution for quite a while.

OW: You've seen OrganizedWisdom evolve and grow since we launched two and a half years ago and we are really excited about how our service is evolving.  What are your thoughts on OrganizedWisdom and the human-powered search service we are building?

IS: I've always thought of OrganizedWisdom as the Wikipedia of healthcare. It's astonishing to see the number of new WisdomCards and the depth of the service now with LiveWisdom and also WisdomCards on doctors and the menus at restaurants!  I also love the request a WisdomCard/research option.  I send a lot of people to your site.  I think it's one of the few places where the value is obvious right away and it's useful minute 1 - no matter what your age, background or issue is.  I get lots of positive feedback from people I send over.   

OW: What feature would you love to see integrated into the OrganizedWisdom service one day?

IS: OrganizedWisdom to understand health insurance?  Or maybe you already have that!   Probably even more with communities or communities of experts about a particular topic. Like maybe there's a panel of 7 oncologists I can query with a question to see what the "(un)conventional wisdom" is on a particular question I have.  I'd probably pay for that.

OW: Any additional words of wisdom that you'd love to share with the industry?

IS: I think it's basically to think big and to think 5 years ahead always.  To never think about this space as a trend.  And to believe in people, because health is ultimately personal, and if we remember that, the road ahead will always be exciting.