Hive Health

I stumbled upon this gem of a programme whilst curating Patient Centricity news on Scoop it this morning.

Matt and I are heading up to Salford on the train, it’s pitch black, and dead depressing. This cheered me up somewhat and stirred a long gone memory.

I only just remember my sister being ill when I was about 6. A more distinct memory was her accompanying bear; Peri.  Peri pretty much was present all the way to health. Every now and then Peri is discovered still with his hospital wristband on and much smaller than I remember.  I now know that this little bear was named after a Heath Robinson looking yogurt pot, tube and bag gizmo that provided her with the peritoneal dialysis needed whilst her kidneys took a kicking,

This enterprising inspiring mum took her son’s similar requirement for a cancer companion to the next level. Just after his first birthday, Gabe’s mother, Lu Sipos, made the very first Chemo Duck for him. She thought he could use a companion to take to the hospital, one with whom he could share his journey back to health. Both Chemo Duck and Gabe finished treatment in November 2003 and have remained cancer free since.

Since then Lu along with a board of directors and a newly formed not for profit organisation have taken the chemo duck and made him fly. Chemo duck is now in production and the team are striving to give away 10,000 of these donated friends by Gabe’s 10 year birthday.

More than a companion chemo duck has become a vital part of ‘medical play’, a concept that allows children to communicate with parents and healthcare professionals, offering a window into their world midst the turmoil of cancer. Chemo duck is used time and time again as a powerful therapeutic and teaching tool used in medical facilities to familiarize children with cancer protocol and procedures.

Pretty cool eh?

Just back from an innovation roster pitch presentation which called out to the bright and challenging to come and inspire. We feel passionately about future proofing healthcare communications and were delighted to get a spot in front of the progressive bunch who hosted us on Thursday afternoon.

We finished our session with tactical speed dating. Quick fire selling, demo’ing case studies that answered a question from the brief. We all left buzzing, having met everyone in the session in a more intimate setting and got to grips with some of the team’s specific issues. Emma’s Dynasty style ipad demo, Jas’ meeting in a box Russian doll, Ian’s Guess Who game and Kate’s NICE guidance documents lift challenge all led us to a much richer interaction.

It has been interesting seeing how each of us tackled demonstrating. It’s not really in the typical agency skill set, those of us who have sold stuff door to door  (Ian – paintings, me Pentium II chips) relished the chance to get down and dirty. The rest of the team spanked the task, stretching creativity and storytelling to the max. Some of the lessons learnt were;

• Keeping to 7 minutes is tough when the kitchen timer is split into indistinct minutes
• When cutting out hermit crabs in foamex you need loads of scalpel blades
• 6 boxes with ribbons are really hard to tie in a hurry between ‘dates’
• £90 buys you a very sexy demo film if you know where to go
• When stuck for a concept steal from your kids
• Presenting repeatedly makes it smoother (running counter to the ‘never fully rehearse’ a pitch before the day rule)

Last night a group of us headed back to the Dana centre to fill our brains with some more geek fulled knowledge. The talk this time was a bit closer to our hearts looking at how far patient empowerment and knowledge can be pushed and with what consequences.

The talk entitled ‘My beautiful genome’ explored the science behind genetic testing and its future roll out to the general population, and looked at the possible ethical and practical consequences of doing so.

Lorna Frank, the author of ‘My beautiful genome’ discussed her experiences getting her genome sequenced and learning the risk factors that her genetic profile predisposes her to. She likened the genetic revolution to that of the PC revolution – something that will take ours and the next generations by storm and become so widely accessible that in her view all individuals will be armed with their genetic profile.

But what are the consequences of this? Ethically is it right to be informing patients that they are predisposed to diseases like Alzheimer’s without firstly being able to directly predict that they will actually develop the disease and in full knowledge that currently there is no cure or possibility to prevent onset? Does this lead to greater anxiety, potentially lower quality of life and ultimately greater pressures on the medical system as patients armed with greater knowledge appear at far greater frequency in front of their GP? Lorna’s view was no and that the current studies underway are showing no negative impact of this nature. I would question the bias of the sample at the moment with only those truly interested and well informed individuals being tested. If the genetic revolution does explode in the way predicted then I think there would need to be a far more robust infrastructure of pre and post patient counselling as well as education and information on what the results actually mean – they do not correlate to a direct prediction and as such the general population would need to have their expectations managed or we would have an entire host of terrified hypochondriacs on our hands!

However it did raise a load of interesting questions and is something that once the science evolves a bit further could be quite tempting. Most interesting to me was the more psychological side of things – the thought that some of my more annoying personality traits maybe down to my genetic profile and so ‘not my fault!’ It would re-open the discussion of nature versus nurture – with the potential that far more of our personalities than we think are actually outside of our control.

Either way a fascinating debate and one that will only become more heated as the technology and availability of these tests increases.

I stumbled upon this looking for guys to help me with a current project. The film covers collaboration, inspiration and the need for innovators to have lots of hobbies. Something I can embrace fully.

The star of the film; Author Steven Johnson talks on the launch on his new book covering the myths and rules of innovation. The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.

If you have 5 mins, and are interested in innovation and history  its well worth a friday afternoon muse, I have the book on order, so will fill you in, when I am through it.