Fast Company’s October 2017 issue leads with a cover story featuring Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella, with the title, “Microsoft Rewrites the Code.” The issue of Fast.Co is devoted to the theme of innovation by design, and the 8-page story on the company emphasizes the themes of empathy and collaboration in re-imagining the organization.

I lead with this because I’m now in Orlando preparing to participate in Microsoft’s annual meeting called Envision. This conference brings together the company’s clients from around the world, representing major industry segments. I’m grateful to be invited to participate in the first of six sessions devoted to healthcare.

Dr. Simon Kos, Chief Medical Officer at Microsoft, will be interviewing me for a one-on-one conversation on Saving Lives With Digital Transformation in Health. We’ll be mashing up health-tech topics including analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Healthy Things, mobile health, virtual and telehealth, population health, and the importance of privacy and security in light of the latest Equifax breach and EU data privacy update — all with people (patients, consumers, caregivers and clinicians) and value at the center.

Simon published a blog post on Envision, AI and Digital Transformation last week here; it’s worth reading through this doctor’s lens on the state of education and schools, creativity, the hospitality industry, and healthcare. Obviously, he is certainly a kindred spirit to my way of trend-weaving health and healthcare.

Here’s a link to the ENVISION meeting agenda, and here’s one for the health-specific sessions.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  It’s fun to get lulled into techno-optimism; after all, we’re in Orlando and the fantasy of Disney and Harry Potter World perfume the air we breathe while we’re in this geographic neck of the theme park woods.

So I’ll also be raising issues and barriers during my conversation with Simon that could limit mass adoption of digital innovations. These might include:

  • Broadband accessibility to not just the last mile/meter, but to the last person
  • Payment alignment toward value away form volume
  • Health citizens’ data rights
  • Health citizens’ health data engagement (or lack thereof)
  • Healthcare provider burnout,

and other challenges to existing health business models, professional turf, and consumer engagement.

I’ll also bring Nadella’s own brand of empathy and collaboration back into Simon’s and my dialogue. Healthcare merits, deserves, needs both empathy and collaboration to drive the Triple Aim — a guiding beacon for us to enhance the healthcare experience for everyone (patient and clinician alike), bolster health outcomes, and lower costs per capita. There’s no engagement or collaboration without trust, and no trust without empathy. That’s why our individual patient and provider stories are so powerful and informing.

Stay tuned for more insights we’re hearing about at Microsoft Envision. We’ll be tweeting using hashtag #MSFTEnvision, @MSFTEnvision and @Health_IT. I’ll also be writing up another blog post highlighting my Envision learnings here on Health Populi to which Microsoft will link.