Seventh Annual Diagnostic Excellence Summit: Diagnostic Digital Health Research
Sept. 27, 2023, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. EDT
Turner Concourse and Tilghman Auditorium
720 Rutland Ave, Baltimore, MD 21205
Over the past few years, research interest in diagnostic digital health has blossomed at Johns Hopkins and across the country. What is new? What have we learned? What is the place of the clinician-scientist in this new milieu? What does a successful research career in this space look like?
In this symposium, we focus on diagnostic digital technologies and their associated data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence. We will cover the gamut of concerns, from social and ethical to technical and tactical.
You will learn from experts in the field who are from outside of Johns Hopkins — the private sector, nonprofits and government — and from inside: You will meet like-minded collaborators and will discover opportunities and services available at Johns Hopkins.
The use of digital health for diagnosis — whether measuring patient data or providing diagnostic advice — has become part and parcel of the practice of medicine. Many faculty, especially junior faculty, have their careers invested in different aspects of this practice, whether it be machine learning and the analysis of clinical data to develop decision support, the inclusion of decision support into practice, or the inclusion of new technologies. Over the past few years, Johns Hopkins has developed service and educational capacity to help faculty members, and has developed a rich network of collaborators. And yet some key questions remain: How is digital health research different from traditional biomedical and health services research? In the era of tech companies racing to develop new products in a time frame so different from academia, what is the role of faculty in the digital health ecology, and how do they develop a research career that prospers?
Attendees will:
- Identify diagnostic digital-health research resources to fit to their needs.
- Begin relationships with potential collaborators for research or for funding.
- Relate their research plans to those of fellow faculty or to those of senior faculty who have pioneered the pathway for them.
- Articulate necessary and state-of-the-art components of a fundable diagnostic digital-health research project.
- Identify gaps in, and opportunities for, diagnostic digital-health methods or services.
Contrast the academic and the industry research timelines.
Johns Hopkins Summit Organizers:
David Newman-Toker, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurology and Director, Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence
Kathryn McDonald, Ph.D., M.M.
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Systems, Quality and Safety and Co-Director, Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence
Harold Lehmann, M.D., Ph.D.
DX Summit Co-Chair, Professor, Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, DXC Co-Investigator, Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence
Ayodele McClenney, J.D.
DX Summit Co-Chair, Director Strategic Initiatives & Business Development,
Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence
Pouya Bastani, M.D.
DX Summit Program Chair, Johns Hopkins University Research Fellow, Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence
Keynote Speakers
Kapil Parakh, M.D., Ph.D.
Kapil Parakh is a cardiologist, and a senior medical lead at Google, where he has launched products that reach a billion people and pioneered partnerships with a range of organizations including the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association. Kapil also currently sees patients part time at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and he is an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University and an adjunct assistant professor at Yale University.
Before serving at Google, Kapil was a White House fellow and the principal health adviser to the secretary of veterans affairs. He also co-founded an award-winning nonprofit health innovation organization, and he was the director of heart failure at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where he developed novel care delivery models. As a clinician-scientist, he has published papers on psychosocial factors in heart disease.
Kapil is board certified in internal medicine, cardiology and advanced heart failure, and he has an M.D., M.P.H. and Ph.D. His book Searching for Health was published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Neha Verma, Ph.D.
Neha Verma is an entrepreneur, a digital health professional and the co-founder and CEO of Intelehealth, a global technology nonprofit working to improve access to health where there is no doctor. She has a master’s degree and a doctorate degree in health sciences, with a focus on telemedicine, from The Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Verma has authored several impactful publications on the implementation of digital health programs for front-line health workers with organizations such as the Global mHealth Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Mobile Technology in Support of Frontline Health Workers), UNICEF (telemedicine policy and implementation guidelines) and the Ministry of Health in Kyrgyzstan. Dr. Verma is also a contributor for Women@Forbes, writing about women in tech, product development, organizational strategy, social impact and nonprofits.
The recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Rainer Arnhold Fellowship and the Abell Foundation Fellowship, Dr. Verma has also been recognized as a Top Innovator by the Echoing Green Talent Report.
Presentations
“Consumer Technology and Digital Diagnostics”
Presented by Kapil Parakh, M.D., Ph.D.
"Digital Diagnostics in Global Health"
Presented by Neha Verma, Ph.D.
Highlights from Past Conferences
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The Diagnostic Excellence Summit was open to the public to discuss disparities and equity issues facing patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, to consider innovations in care models, research and clinical interventions, and to examine gaps in knowledge and best practices regarding addressing the impact of disparities on diagnosis.
- Keynote Speech: “National Perspectives in Health Care Disparities” by Jeffrey Brady, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety,
- The first segment of the summit, led by Brady, featured a panel of experts discussing a national perspective on health care disparities and the pandemic’s impact on access and equity concerns.
- The second segment, Understanding the Intersection of Disparities and Diagnostic Excellence, featured talks from leaders evaluating access and equity issues impacting our communities. The session explored key concepts in disparities research as well as innovations in telehealth deployment and education to consider and address challenges in clinical care in this new environment.
- The third and final segment of the conference, led by practicing clinicians in primary care, women’s health and emergency medicine, focused on real world clinical experiences as well as innovative approaches in community engagement and in modeling, methods and technology. Faculty presented specific clinical adaptations to improve care quality, access and equity during the pandemic and to facilitate conversation to learn from other organizations and clinicians across the country.
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This three-hour virtual summit focused on diagnosing SARS-CoV-2, COVID disease and non-COVID diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Panel discussions led by Yukari Manabe, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine, focused on current and future diagnostics for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
- A presentation by Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement, featured a panel of clinical, public health and public policy experts discussing an overall strategy to address both COVID and non-COVID disease diagnosis across different levels of the public health response.
- Presentations by the leaders of the Center for Diagnostic Excellence included Susan Peterson, assistant professor of emergency medicine, and Kathryn McDonald, a patient safety expert and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Systems, Quality and Safety.
- Networking with patient safety and quality champions across our health system.
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Presentations by faculty and staff members throughout Johns Hopkins Medicine.
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Educational courses:
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Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound in the Diagnosis and Stratification of Patients with COVID-19
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Telehealth Diagnostic Triage of Patients in the Era of COVID
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Being a Patient in the Midst of a Pandemic: Experiences Seeking COVID and non-COVID Care
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Preparing for the “Second Wave” of COVID Diagnosis
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Clinical Data Repurposed for Diagnosing and Tracking the Outbreak
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View the full program agenda.
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The Diagnostic Strategy for the COVID-19 Pandemic – Bench to Bedside to Blueprint for Policymakers Summit
The 2020 Diagnostic Excellence Summit was a virtual (and recorded) conference, open to the public, on diagnosing SARS-CoV-2, COVID disease and non-COVID-19 diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For questions, please email [email protected].