One of the great communications gurus said something to me that I have thought about my six years in and around the online health space:  “It never ceases to surprise me,” he lamented, “common sense just isn’t that common.” The common sense of our worlds seem clear to me.  Everyone is a health seeker; everyone [...]

Last Wednesday, my friend Joe Wheeler and I threw Louisville’s inaugural Quantified Self Meetup, sponsored by HealthCentral and igNew. We had 50% participation from our fledgling group’s total membership, which was an awesome way to kick off the movement in the Derby City. There is definitely an interest for all things quantified and self in [...]

Last Friday I had the privilege of attending an event in Cincinnati that brought parents of children with autism together. The event was put on by John Thornton, former Defensive Tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans, co-founder of JockBiz and all around great guy. John raises money for autism and throws events like [...]

It is not only an honor, but electrifying to be with you all. I find nothing more inspirational than spending time with people who have made their life mission to create that which was not there before – directly with the entrepreneurs themselves and all of you who are part of the worlds they are [...]

Guest Post by Sara Suchy Amazing things happen when passionate, dedicated, like-minded people come together in one place.  Last weekend, about 80 of those people came together in Boulder, Colorado at the first annual Fitness and Health Bloggers Conference to discuss one common theme: making the world healthier.  This is maybe not the most unique [...]

Guest Post by Sara Suchy Hello From Boulder, CO! A few fabulous HealthCentral and Wellsphere Bloggers and I are here attending the FIRST ANNUAL Fitness and Health Blogger’s Conference. Throughout the weekend, we’ll bring you all kinds of updates and insights as we listen to and share ideas with some of the most amazing minds [...]

    An honor to be here.     I have known many of you as friends and by reputation over the years     It is not “in” to say this – but you save lives in what you do – it really is an honor. Today I will make a presentation by not [...]

Yesterday, HealthCentral attended TechCocktail’s Startup Mixology at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in DC.  Tech Cocktail refers to themselves as “cocktail of emerging technology news, people, startups, products, and innovations” for tech enthusiasts.  They travel the country putting on events that bring great minds in the tech/entrepreneur/startup world to speak about successes, failures, and everything in [...]

My dad smoked for most of his adult life, quitting only when his first grandson was born. When I was pregnant, I urged him to quit so that he would be around to see his namesake grow up. Apparently that was strong enough motivation to get him to quit. He had tried several times previously [...]

In honor of Migraine Awareness Month we want to pay a small tribute to the deeply moving  Putting Our Heads Together Migraine Poetry Contest co-hosted by HealthCentral and our expert Teri Robert’s (@trobert). Consisting of over 80 migraine themed poems, the 2011 contest contained prose filled with pain, anger, sadness, and even humor. Migraine expert [...]

DC Patient Advocate Artist, Regina Holliday is at it again with her amazing works of art.  This year she teamed up with Kaiser Permanente to create #TheWalkingGallery event on June 7th.  For one night, art will be displayed, not by hanging with nails to a wall, but on jackets of all types; worn by people. [...]

Guest Post by Kate Searby On Monday HealthCentral hosted its first meet-up at Fireworks Pizza in Arlington, Virginia. With the help of Wellsphere blogger Vanessa Maltin Weisbrod we provided a four course gluten-free dinner to thirty adults living with Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disease triggered by an allergy to gluten, a protein [...]

Guest Post by Kate Searby As I mentioned in my previous blog post about SXSWi, much of the conference’s buzz was focused on mobile, location-based, real-time technology. There is no question that social media plus mobile has changed the way people meet and engage, but I never imagined the scale until I landed in Austin. [...]

Guest Post by Tony Via 2011 was my first South By… more on that in a second. Between in-flight Wi-Fi and complimentary Bloody Mary’s, comfy chairs & charging stations in my layover airport (nice job, Dallas), and an exuberantly friendly (which, if you’ve never been South, you can’t truly appreciate) concierge when arriving at my [...]

Guest Post by Kate Searby Like South by Southwest Interactive 2010, much of the focus of this year’s conference is mobile, location-based, real-time technology. There is no question that social media plus mobile has changed the way people meet and engage, but I never imagined the scale until this week in Austin. Nor did I [...]

One of the best aspects of SXSW is the wide variety of session topics. You can hear people talk about game mechanics, re branding birth control, tweeting strategies for non-profits, and location-based services.  At almost every session, someone says, “there were 3 other good sessions at the same time.  It’s so hard to choose.” Ogilvy [...]

Going through some old posts on my (seemingly defunct) personal blog for street cred on the topic, I was reminded how much I really liked Twitter lists and niches, as I’ve been rekindling that old flame lately. What I’m enjoying about Twitter lists these days is how far they’ve come toward serving as an all [...]

Fascinating panel discussion of leading patient advocates – Ann Bartlett, Dave deBronkart and Alicia Staley – moderated by Jeremy Shane at the ePharma Summit. My only complaint is that it was limited to half an hour. I was particularly struck by the unanimity on the panel that they welcome open interaction with pharma and that [...]

Guest Post by Sara Suchy Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Annual NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo right here in lovely Washington D.C.  In their 11th year of organizing and hosting this event, NBC4 certainly knows how to execute a fantastically diverse and informative expo with something for everyone. The NBC4 Expo [...]

My friend, Mark Hawker, hipped me to this amazing Nicholas Christakis TED talk called: The hidden influence of social networks that will be 18 minutes of your life well spent. I get that anybody who looks at Facebook’s latest valuation knows that social networks are “powerful.” But Nicholas Christakis dives into the individual’s network architecture [...]

As the year closes out, everyone is finishing up year-end tasks, frantically holiday shopping to find that perfect gift, or making plans for parties and family gatherings – and we, at HealthCentral, decided to celebrate 2010 with our annual holiday party.  Our peers from around the country gathered together this past Thursday in Arlington at [...]

Last night, a few ladies from the office and I headed down to the Ronald Regan Building for DC Central Kitchen’s Capital Food Fight event.  DC Central Kitchen “turns leftover food into millions of meals for thousands of at-risk individuals while offering nationally recognized culinary job training to once homeless and hungry adults.”  Their mission [...]

When you’re in the midst of an historic moment, you can feel it.  Something is happening that is simply bigger than the immediate. This two day gathering in Dubai is such a moment.  I believe we will look back on the history of global entrepreneurship, which is really the essence of so much of history [...]

This week kicks of the Celebration of Entrepreneurs (CoE) event –#CoE2010.   It is a great honor for HealthCentral and me that I’ve been invited to a historic assembly of entrepreneurs from the Middle East.  Gathered today in Dubai are over 2,500 young, tenacious, brilliant women and men, from around the world, sharing ideas and learning – [...]

I participated in an encouraging roundtable last week on “Examining the Roles of the FDA and the Pharmaceutical Industry in Social Media” hosted by AstraZeneca.  The participants included a variety of pharma marketers, patient advocates, online health companies, social media and health bloggers and industry analysts.  The discussion was thoughtful, insightful and exactly the kind [...]

Here on the product team at HealthCentral, we’re in continuous deep discussions about the growth and value of mobile health apps.  Last year, we launched Mood 24/7,  creating a new platform for patients to track their well-being in close communication with their physicians — and with data and technology guru Chris Hall now steering the [...]

So here we go again – events season is here and we kicked ours off at the e-Patient Conference in Philly!  The first day agenda was packed with great insights from e-Patient Dave, Susannah Fox, and Joe Shields.   I really enjoyed the LIVESTRONG presentation and the mobile track later in the day.  One of my [...]

The team just gathered over some pasta to listen to our SEO and Analytics Manager, Dan Marschinke and Director of Patient Engagement, Veronica Combs collaborate on Google’s latest feature at the moment – Google Instant.  Dan was hot on the case last week with his initial blog post, “What Does Google Instant Mean for Health [...]

Guest Blog Post by Sara Suchy Last Thursday night (7/29), HealthCentral had the pleasure of attending an exhibit of paintings by Regina Holliday presented by Clinovations. Ms. Holliday’s artwork collection, dubbed “e-Patient Ephemera—73 cents meets the world of data capture” aims to illustrate, through various pictures, stories and objects, the “complex world of health care [...]

Last night, in prep for today’s CBI patient panel, Ignite Health’s Fabio Gratton invited Alicia Staley, Ann Bartlett,  Diane Bayer and myself to a lovely dinner, all with the purpose to “plot for world domination” (as Alicia said it!) and talk about patient empowerment and pharmaceutical marketing. On nights like these, I’m always struck by [...]

Yesterday we reluctantly (ha) pulled ourselves away from our cubes and spent the whole day at DCWeek, a grassroots event spanning 9 days and attracting DC’s digital market. DC’s sometimes-reputation of being a sleepy place for web innovation was certainly in conflict with the scene, as hundreds of smart techies came together to ask “why [...]

Earlier today I hung around with the people behind Health 2.0, the 5 person company that’s put on 7 (or 8? Maybe 9? Even they have to count back) of the industry’s most talked about conferences. We were stoked when the team asked us for a free room leading up to their Health 2.0 DC [...]

When Facebook announced its new Open Graph functionality at the F8 conference last week, the first thing we did at our office, obviously, was rush to Pandora to see what kind of music our coworkers were listening to that we could make fun of them for. (By now, most have heard of or experienced Facebook’s [...]

In the great cacophony of information out there, why in the name of the Good Lord is there need for another blog? I wrestled this question a great deal in considering launching a blog under the auspices of HealthCentral and the great team of innovators and thought-leaders I work with. Perhaps I should start on [...]

If you’re in the interactive space, your twitters streams and Facebook updates are overflowing with reports from Austin, Texas — well, that and the latest Lady Gaga and Beyonce duet video.  Yup, it’s that time of year again… SXSW’s panels and keynotes offer insight and predictions on emerging technologies in the space. What are you [...]

I went through a battery of tests for some issues I’m mostly cleared on a month ago.
For the last three days I’ve received not one, but SEVEN bills for my endoscopies: