For the past three years, the SXSW Interactive team has brought attendees the sessions they want through a process they’ve dubbed PanelPicker. The voting process allows the SXSW community to weigh-in, along with staff and Advisory Boards, on their desired panel programming and we’re pretty psyched about what they’ve selected in the first panel announcements for March’s conference. A huge thanks needs to be paid to the Social Health 2010 Conference for giving SXSW the big push it needed to include a Health track this year. Last year, Social Health brought together a variety of health organizations, from big pharma to non-profits, in order to find solutions for the most pressing issues facing online health communication today.
Here are a list of health-focused panels to look-out for if you’re attending, and a few to make you reconsider if you’re not. Have others worth checking out that were accepted? Add them in comments on this post.
Health: Is There Really an App for That?
Presented by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, THINK-Health (Edelman-sponsored)
How can health communicators build apps that will not only be utilized, but will also serve a unique purpose for their users? This panel will challenge attendees thinking and focus on the three areas crucial to success: usability, activation and retention.
Patients/Caregivers on Facebook: Establishing Boundaries without Barriers
Presented by Ed Bennett, University of Maryland Medical Center
How can caregivers build the same close relationships with their patients online that they do offline? Ed Bennett will seek to answer all of your questions about legality, ethics, and best practices for patient/caregiver interaction online within the healthcare community across all platforms.
Health Communities: Superheroes Who Need a Justice League
Presented by Jennifer Prokopy, ChronicBabe.com
Online health communities (OHCs) have emerged as one of the most valuable support systems available to patients with chronic illnesses. However, for some areas of health there is still room for improvement. This panel will address best practices for partnerships, underserved populations, niche communities and usability.
Social Health: Who Wants to “Like” Hemorrhoid Cream?
Presented by Carlen Lea Lesser, RTC Relationship Marketing
Struggling to make your pharma brand relationship-friendly? Breathe some social media life into your strategy with the tips from this interactive session where attendees will have the chance to ask questions about the struggles that ail their particular brands and products.
Minority Report: Social Media for Decreasing Health Disparities
Presented by Aimee Roundtree, University of Houston-Downtown
The minority population has long been considered as underserved in the health community, both on and off-line. This session will provide solutions to the problem by sharing strategies for social and mobile media technologies in order to increase health literacy within these communities.
