A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

The Internet of Healthy and Medical Things will proliferate at CES 2016 in Las Vegas next week – the annual Consumer Electronics Show. This is the yearly mega-convention organized by the Consumer Technology Association, and digital health has been among the fastest-growing marketplaces at the CES for several years in a row. The two-day Digital Health Summit will complement the vendors ont he convention floor with content, education, and networking for the industry.

Here’s a link to my latest Huffington Post column on Health at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show – What to Expect.

Health Populi’s Hot Points: The Consumer Electronics Association changed its name to the Consumer Technology Association in November this year, marking a shift in the organization’s memebership, markets, and mission.

CTA’s morphing from “E” to “T” is also an analog for what’s happening with medical technology, once the purview of hospitals and “high-tech” doctors’ offices. The medical device and life science industries are undergoing changes based on the emergence of sensors (smaller, cheaper), computing power (faster, cheaper), cloud computing, and Big Data and analytics. That’s on the supply and supply chain side of the market.

But it’s the demand side — the consumer — that is also re-shaping the landscape for medical technology. The high penetration of mobile platforms in peoples’ hands, both smartphones and tablets, provide the base technology for people – patients, caregivers, health consumers all — to take on more self-care and prevention tactics that bolster health and wellbeing.

Those mobile platforms, for both patients and clinicians (doctors, health coaches, nurses, diabetes educators, et. al.), can enable shared decision making and shared care workflows. Self-service and DIY healthcare at home and where we live, work, and play, will transform health care delivery and health economics. Here’s more on the role and implications of homo informaticus in health care.

And indeed, CES 2016 will have more digital health tech involving healthcare, beyond fitness and wellness. The presence of Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealthcare, and Philips (long a global leader in med-tech) testify to this new-new health/care environment.

Follow me using #CES2016 @healthythinker on Twitter all next week during CES, as well as coverage here daily on Health Populi.

I’ll also be moderating the first session of the Digital Health Summit on The Wizards of Maternal Health, talking about the connective tissue between the digital and the analog to benefit maternal and child health.

And for my perspectives on the 2015 CES, here’s a link to last year’s Health Populi post on health, everywhere, at #CES2015.