What a weekend!  We attended an exciting conference one day, and stumbled on a living legend the next.  Read how a confluence of disparate backgrounds gives all of us hope for the future and suggests that we can change the world.

"Pete, what is the greatest change that you've seen in your time?"

"The Information Revolution...if we use it right, it may save the human race."

Saturday, we found Pete in a local art shop in Beacon NY.  Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. Some of his favorites are: Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I had a Hammer; and Turn, Turn, Turn. Pete has led people in improving, reclaiming, and detoxifying the Hudson River Valley.

The day before, we had the honor of hearing Todd Park, the CTO of Health and Human Service speak at the Tech Garden in Syracuse, N.Y. on Unleashing the Power of Data, IT, and Innovations to Improve Health

• decision support
• care management tools
• extended physician reach
• consumer engagement tools
• data mining

It was most inspiring that Todd said that we can innovate our way out of the healthcare crisis... care coordination, collaboration for improved health outcomes. Todd Park is a dynamic, charismatic speaker, and he was speaking to innovators of all ages saying that we have the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity since the birth of the internet. He talked about "a stitch in time," ACO's, meaningful use. CMS has $10 billion to use for reasearch and development to get value out of our recorded health data. He says that we shouldn't be paying for volume of service, but, instead, we should be paying for improved health and increased value.  This Land was Made for You and Me!  Certainly innovating our way out of the healthcare crisis would be a way of showing Pete that we are trying to use information in the right way.

To this end, Todd he moved his family and two very young children to Washington to liberate health data (Gov 2.0) and inspire the rest of us to improve the efficiencies of our country's healthcare. He said that he has never been so proud to be an American since he became the CTO of HHS. He wants to turn HHS into the NOAA of healthcare (NOAA is responsible for the data that spins The Weather Channel, weather.com, and nightly news weather, all in the interest of providing weather knowledge for our good). Think what this parallel could mean if applied consicentiously to healthcare delievery!

And feel free to check out the iClickCare innovation to make our medical days easier.

See a clip of the performance here.