I needed to get to an office that was just around the corner from the Bank of England. I avoided Bank underground station; instead I caught a Northern Line train to Moorgate and decided to walk. I negotiated my way past a huge Crossrail building site, London’s next underground line, and crossed London Wall: a road that roughly follows the path of a boundary wall built by the Romans.
I turned left onto Lothbury and soon found my destination. I pushed a heavy door and found myself in a huge space that was flooded with light. I looked around; this was clearly a building of significance. Neo-classical columns rose up from the ground, meeting a ceiling that was decorated with ornate plaster work. Stunned, I gingerly walked to the reception desk to ask about a law firm that I had never heard of before.
‘Name?’
‘I joined really late. I’m not going to be on the list, but I can show you some evidence that I’ve registered’. I opened my phone, found the Meetup list and gave it to the security guard. I had played this game before. I knew what to do.
‘Do you know Charles?’ The guard had recognised the name of the organiser from the list.
‘I don’t know Charles. I’ve never met him before. I’ve come to the, erm, event. I only recently registered’.
‘Name?’
The guard gave me a pen. I wrote my name on a piece of paper and was told to go to the third floor. I had made it; I had managed to successfully negotiate my way through security without too much drama.
When I made it to the third floor I was greeted by an immaculately dressed receptionist who directed me to a meeting room and told me to help myself to tea or coffee. Given the posh surroundings, I decided to treat myself to a complimentary cup of Earl Grey.
‘Hello, my name is Hasan. What aspect of healthcare are you interested in?’ The event was about healthcare apps. Hasan wasn’t messing about. He wanted to network, and to network quickly.
‘I’m, erm, more of a technologist. I’m interested in how technology can be applied to solve problems and, erm, make things better’. That set Hasan off. He explained that he worked for a business that manufactured Bluetooth enabled medical devices. He mentioned various parameters such as pulse rate, blood pressure and blood sugar before giving me his business card. Bluetooth allowed these measurements to be delivered to your mobile phone.
‘And, what do you do?’
‘I work at a university’.
Hasan’s eyes changed. He went from being animated and enthusiastic about his business to presenting a physical demeanour that essentially said, ‘you’re dead to me; there’s no real point in talking to you anymore, how do I escape from this dead end conversation without coming across as very rude?’ I recognised that he had a much more important job to do than I did; I helped his escape by saying that I hoped he enjoyed the event.
I found myself at a table with a lawyer, a hedge fund manager, a GP and a chap called Ray who said that he used to practice law. The more events that I go to, the more empowered that I was starting to feel. Since all these events were publically advertised, I felt there should be no reason for excuses: I told everyone what my real job was, and then told them about my randomness quest. The truth was that I was vaguely interested in what was going to happen in this event. There was also a random link between this event and the Club Soda event that I had attended a day earlier: Club Soda was, in essence, using technology to try to improve the health of those who had alcohol problems; everything was connected.
We were ushered into a large presentation room. Three incredibly expensive looking chandeliers hung from a very high ceiling. I sat down next to someone who described herself as a ‘telemedicine consultant’.
The first speaker, who was from the law firm that was hosting the event, gave us a very brief introduction. The building that we were occupying used to be the headquarters of the National Westminster bank. It was built in 1860, and the rooms that we were sitting in used to be the director’s dining room. The law firm that now occupied a part of the building specialised in health and technology law, hence the connection to the Health Technology Forum: running a Meetup, it seemed, was a great (and a simple) way to make contact with prospective clients.
There were two other speakers: a professor called Jeremy from the University of Leeds, and a junior doctor called Tom who had a connection with the University of Warwick. Jeremy gave a broad overview of the subject. He described how technology could be used in different aspects of medicine: there could be decision support tools, management tools, online consultations, apps that offered reminders and tools that allowed you to access test results.
An interesting point was made: face to face interactions with doctors are expensive. For certain types of medical interventions, digital interactions can be cheap and have the potential to offer fast results. There are, of course important issues to consider: not everyone has access to technology, and there are concerns about the quality and safety of some apps; a competent coder can create an app but not every coder is medically trained.
In some ways, Jeremy’s presentation set the scene for Tom’s talk which was about trying to provide answers. Since app quality is really important, what could be done to ensure that they work properly? One point was about awareness and education. A related question was: where do we get advice from? Which organisations should we trust? The answer to was that it depends on what an app does.
Jeremy raised what I took to be important points: technology is moving a whole lot more quickly than the regulatory authorities; there’s also a tension between those in the technology sphere who wish to innovate, and the regulators who wish to make sure that tools and interventions are used prudently and appropriately.
During the question and answer session, Tom used an interesting turn of phrase. He said that ‘apps’ have the potential to be prescribed to patients in the same way that drugs are. The similarity is that apps have the potential to effect change (or to influence) those that consume them. The difference is that drugs have to undergo endless sets of testing procedures to assess their effectiveness whereas anyone can create an app and release it quite cheaply.
At the end of the talk we returned to the ‘smaller dining room’. The tea and coffee had been replaced with beer and wine. I found myself standing by a table next to the Meetup organiser, Charles. He was tall and slim, and around sixty years old. He had a loud voice that commanded authority. I asked him whether he was either a lawyer or a doctor.
‘Neither! I used to work in finance, but I’ve moved to IT’ replied Charles, with a booming voice.
Running the Meetup group seemed to be one of many things that he did. He spoke of lobbying medical organisations about the importance of technology. He was a member of other health and technology organisations. I learnt that there was another London group that was similar to his, but due to the regular programme of events he was advertising, his newer group was a whole lot more successful, attracting substantially more members.
I thought of Charles's role: he was a mover and shaker. He had found a niche. I saw that he was using technology to get people together. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether I could be, or wanted to be a mover and a shaker. I also wondered what I might want to move and shake, but this was a question I couldn't answer.
As I drank my second beer, I chatted to a computer scientist who had accidentally become a geneticist, two lawyers and a doctor. We didn’t chat very much about healthcare or technology. Instead, we talked about travel, the challenges of living in London and, invariably, property prices.
After the doctor had left, I looked around the room; the majority of the members had gone home, and the supply of beers had been exhausted. Charles had also warned us that we all needed to be out of the building by nine in the evening. I looked at my watch. It was time to go.
‘I’m sorry that we didn’t have time to have a chat, but maybe see you at the next event? My name is Steve. I work at UCL’. I shook Steve's hand.
I introduced myself and asked a quick follow up question: ‘which department do you work in?’
‘Psychology’.
‘Just a quick question: have you heard of an organisation called Club Soda?’
‘Club Soda! I know the founder, Laura. Do you know her? She’s a formidable woman, isn’t she?’
No comments:
Post a Comment