The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 3 (June 2014) | Page 31

Conference News

Wearable Technologies Conference
2014 – San Francisco

Wearable technologies are all around us now. But what is in it for
you? Is your current strategy the right one? Do you know the
right people? Technologies worn close to the body, on or even
in the body still leave a lot of open questions.
Meet new people, grow your ideas, and find the right partners
at the world’s most profound gathering for Wearable Technologies – the Wearable Technologies Conference 2014 I USA taking place on July 8 and 9 in San Francisco.
For the 12th time Wearable Technologies will be gathering its
entire ecosystem from chip vendors, integrators, test houses via
network providers, product and service solution providers to
distribution. Expect to meet representatives from companies of

all sizes but also creative thinkers, artists, designers and media.
You will see product launches of the hottest new wearables,
hear discussions about tricky areas in this business, learn about
the most innovative enabling technologies and meet invaluable
new contacts. At the WT Innovation Show you will be able to
test products and see demos live at the venue.
We are very proud that we can deliver the deepest insights to
you as well as we are able to guide you with our expertise.
For more information please visit: www.wearable-technologies.com/
events/wearable-technologies-conference-2014-usa/ n

Healthcare Revolutions: Big Data
and Smart Analytics
Healthcare and insurance have always
shared a symbiotic relationship. Changes
in the delivery of healthcare through digital intervention, big data collection, and
intelligent analytics, all have a subsequent
impact upon the way insurers perceive
and value different aspects of health. As
we recognised in the April issue of The
Journal of mHealth, in our interview
with Peter Ohnemus at Dacadoo the age
of personalised insurance based upon
our own individual health is already here.
The question now is how will technology
in the 'healthcare revolution' change the
life and health underwriting landscape?
If we are at the edge of a data-driven
paradigm shift in healthcare, the effects
on aggregate health and therefore on
insurance models, will be considerable.
Healthcare Revolutions: Big Data
and Smart Analytics, an event organised by the Swiss Re Centre for Global
Dialogue, brought together a formidable panel of presenters to consider some

of the topics relevant to this issue. In this
article we bring you a number of pertinent speaker abstracts.

From diagnosis to
personalised prognosis: Will
better information lead to
better decisions?
(Karin Frick, Head
of Think Tank,
and Member of the
Executive Board,
GDI Gottlieb
Duttweiler Institute)

Prediction was
once the realm
of priests and magicians. In today's society it is increasingly a tool for planning.
Where once we had post-illness diagnosis
of a condition, the future promises preillness prognosis.
Our increasing faith in prediction is

based on technology. A body of datadriven tools is capable of discovering
and analysing patterns so that past correlations can be used to forecast likely
future outcomes. Predictive technologies, which include data mining, neural
networks, and system modelling and
simulation, have been applied to the
study of weather systems, traffic patterns, stock markets, epidemiology, consumer behaviour, terrorist activity, and
many other areas of study where there
can be a significant number of variables.
Technology and our ability to record data
is expanding exponentially; and healthcare is seen as one of the primary beneficiaries. Entrepreneurs are creating apps
that can run on smart phones claiming to
be capable of predicting conditions from
depression to sport injury. These met ɥ