With the splendor of an Academy Awards ceremony, UCSF Innovation Ventures and Digital Health Hub recently hosted the first inaugural Digital Health Awards at UCSF. The event provided a glimpse into the future of medicine.  Tune in to the recorded livestream event.   In 1-2 hours, or a few minutes of scrolling, you will learn how the industry defines itself, its leadership and more. Congratulations to UCSF Innovation Ventures and Digital Health Hub for this bold approach to gathering visionaries (the judges, contestents and presenters). We believe this effort will have a positive impact on the industry going forward.

Highlights included:

1. The award for the best application of AI, introduced by Barry Pell, Founding Fellow, World Changing Ventures. He said that he believes that “almost every aspect of health will be transformed by AI….AI has the chance to augment and enhance human decision making ….It also has the chance to stand in for medical expertise and health as a coach and motivator, tracking and judging people to draw upon the best knowledge and medicine most knowledge wherever they are…. It even has the chance to serve anyone who may not even have access medical care.“ The winner of this category was Livongo. (At 1:22 of the recording)
2. The award for Consumer Wellness and Prevention, introduced by Bob Wachter, Author of The Digital Doctor, and Chair of the Department of medicine at UCSF. He who added a note re the ongoing challenge of knowledge of the tech community and their understanding of the how med is practiced and the patient journey, and, those in academia and their understanding of both business and technology concepts with concepts such as scaling. The winner of this category was. Hyper-regulated so perhaps easier to innovate. The winner was Butterfly Network. (At 1:31 of the recording)
3. The Cardiovascular Diagnostics award, presented by Michael Lesh, 4-time entrepreneur Executive Director, Health Technology Innovation Catalyst, for introducing the category of Cardiovascular Digital Diagnostics and announcing the winner, Nanowear. We were inspired by the comment made by CEO and founder. Venk Vanadan, who added this perspective: “As I think of digital health, it will take a village to really deliver the promise of what digital health should be. He added, “… this is to thank all the entrepreneurs in digital health that are fighting the fight that needs to be fought.” This is an important reminder of the extent of effort that is needed to create positive change in the health care industry and the role of entrepreneurs in making this happen. (At 1:47 of the recording)