Hmmm...

15:29 mareku 0 Comments

Look what I found on my bed this morning!

Unexpected X-mas shopping in London

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Because of the weather and the fact that our plane was way to late in London, we had to stay the night in London. Time to do some X-mas shopping in Jermyn Street and to have dinner at Brasserie St Jacques in St James St. A brilliant ending of our Washington trip. :-)

Oscar Niemeyer dies at 104

16:42 mareku 0 Comments

Oscar Niemeyer single handedly changed Brazil - he not only designed the capital Brasilia but with his clean Modernist architecture with a Brazilian twist put Brazil right at the front of modern architecture and in the 20th (and 21th) century. My favorite: The Brazilian Palacio da Alvorada - breathtakingly beautiful...

The Newseum, Washington DC

16:39 mareku 0 Comments

Nice view of Washington from the terrace

The TV tower from the WTC

Piece of Berlin Wall
Front pages from 9-11
 What a great idea to have a news museum. This is really a great new attraction in Washington. It has great exhibitions about Newspapers (remember those?), Radio, TV and new media.

Alexandria Va

16:37 mareku 0 Comments

Alexandria is a sweet little town on the border of the Potomac. I was never been there but the shops, restaurants etc tasted like more. This seems a perfect place to stay over when you need to be in Washington DC. The Blue line has a great connection and the atmosphere is village like...

The day we went into antiques

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On the Potomac River

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We went from National Harbor to Alexandria, Va to take the blue line to Washington DC. It was fun to be on the river for a while and to see all the monuments of Washington from the water.

The end of doctors as we know them...

15:17 mareku 0 Comments

iHealth bloodpressure (do not worry - I was just fine)
Visi Mobile sensoring
It is almost to much information - but Marijn and I just manage to soak it all up. And the ideas and concepts are bubbling all over. It is good to notice that mHealth is really at the beginning of its fully potential and that everybody is wildly enthusiast to work in this area. Also nice is that this really could make a difference in peoples' lives and will actually saves lives. Most of the start ups here have as a goal not just to make profit but to save X amount of lives - sweet!
Sensors all over the place and the iHealth company makes a couple of the best ones. The app interface is stunning and an example. A question that is addressed in a lot of talks is about patient generated health data and what to do with that. Most doctors now are not interested in that kind of data but one of the most common shared opinions here is that doctors will have to chance rapidly the way they think and act.
Will we have a society without doctors? Maybe! Analytics will be done by computers (better, faster, cheaper), Care will be done by nurses (better, humane, cheaper). So the workday of a doctor is a couple of years: in the morning 3 or 4 really intensive long lasting talks with patients about their decease and treatment - the afternoon scanning various Patient generated health data streams to pick out the ones that need more research.. No more 10 minutes patient visits - less hands on treatment.
The role of the nurse will become even more important - I am happy with that.
Attendees here expect that all to happen withing the next 5 years - too fast? Not if you look at other industries and remember that the cost of Health care is out of control and that Africa and Asia will leap frog us in this perspective...

Sunny Maryland

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National Harbor and the Gaylord Convention Center

13:58 mareku 0 Comments

Potomac room - huge!

Aloft Hotel - where we stay

(high tech) X-mas tree with Potomac river view

Gaylord Convention Center
The mHealth Summit takes place in National Harbor, Maryland, just under Washington DC. This is a brand new development, sort of gated community with a "one way in / same way out" entrance. It is actually not bad. The Gaylord Convention center is huge (even by American standards) and can easily accommodate the more then 4.000 attendees that are expected here. Doctors, nurses, care professionals, IT people and people like Marijn & myself. The weather is amazing: high 60's - so no need for a coat.
Every day will start at 07:30 and last till at least 18:00. Packed with presentations. Themes cover things like latest research methods, gaming for treatment, the use of mobile in care communication, messaging in developing countries, global mHealth etc etc.
Lot's of people here to from the UN and from Africa and Asia, where sometimes people do not have clean water - but do have a mobile phone. Marijn and I are more interested in smartphone apps and their mHealth implications.

The lumia 920 feels great - the MS surface not at all

13:12 mareku 0 Comments

The first thing in Washington was to head to the Pentagon Fashion Mall and to get some new stuff for the upcoming days. At the Microsoft Store (which as usual was pretty empty compared with the packed Apple Store) we finally could hold and test the Nokia Lumia 920 and it was amazingly nice, super fast and just a sweet gadget. It is a pity we still have to wait until end January before we can have one ourselves. Not so good though is the MS surface - it feels and looks like a iLiad ereader from a decade ago. The new Acers / Sony's and even HPs with windows 8 on the other hand looked and felt better then expected and even the touch screen qualities of these devices took us a little by surprise.