The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) announces keynote speakers for the upcoming 2009 mHealth Summit to be held October 29 and 30, 2009, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.
Confirmed keynote speakers include: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS); Dr. S. Francis Collins, newly appointed Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, Special Representative for Global Partnerships, U.S. Department of State; Ambassador Eric Goosby, Coordinator, U.S. Global AIDS, Dr. Agnes Bionagwaho, the Executive Secretary of Rwanda's National Commission to Fight AIDS, and Dr. Roberto Tapia-Conyer, Director General of the Carso Health Institute of Mexico.
The two-day mHealth Summit, hosted by the Foundation for National Institutes of Health, is the first summit to bring together more than 700 experts in mHealth who are focused on exploring the use of mobile technologies to strengthen public health care delivery, biomedical research to transform healthcare in the U.S. and the developing world.
Partners in the mHealth Summit are at the forefront of the fight for greater global health solutions. They include: Microsoft Research, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership and the World Bank.
Microsoft Research, the partnering sponsor of the summit, also serves as co-chair of the planning committee. Other sponsors include Abbott Fund, Battelle, Becton Dickinson, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Qualcomm. This is the first time this diverse group will assemble for a cross-discipline collaboration
The mHealth Summit is the first event to bring together domestic and international researchers and policymakers with technology experts and visionaries to pursue the following objectives:
- Build a bridge between clinical and biomedical researchers with mobile and wireless technology experts for a unique cross-discipline collaborative effort;
- Identify and foster integration of mHealth solutions to meet public health challenges - particularly as it relates to improving the delivery of health care to underserved populations in the U.S. and in the developing world;
- Examine current policies regarding mobile health technologies and their use in reducing or eliminating domestic and global health disparities;
- Discuss and craft a vision for the integration of biomedical research with mHealth technologies moving forward.
A related event, "From Policy to Implementation," held the full-day preceding the summit will explore policy issues relating to mHealth. This is being organized with support from the World Bank, mHealth Alliance, and the Foundation for NIH.
A complete summit agenda and a live webcast of the summit will be available at the mHealth Summit site at www.fnih.org.
Twitter hashtag #mHS09