Forum created to help transform health care for individuals and families throughout the world

Oct 8 2009

The 2009 National Summit on Personalized Health Care: "Fostering Transformative Innovation," marked the formation of the Forum on Personalized Health Care, a collaborative community committed to the development and utilization of transformative innovations in science, technology and health care delivery for the benefit of individuals and families throughout the world.

The Forum is comprised of collaborative "Agenda Communities" focused on driving advances in seven inter-related domain areas: Funding/Investment; Health Care Delivery; Health Insurance; Industry; Patient Advocacy; Public Policy; and Research & Technology.

The second annual Summit, hosted by Utah Governor Gary Herbert and held October 5-7 at Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, Utah, featured a case study written specifically for the event and presented by Clayton Christensen, Harvard University strategy professor, author of The Innovator's Dilemma and co-author of The Innovator's Prescription. The Summit also included keynote addresses from:

• U.S. Senators Bob Bennett and Ron Wyden, co-authors of the bipartisan Healthy Americans Act
• U.S. Congressman Tim Murphy, co-chair of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus, the Doctor's Caucus and the Mental Health Caucus
• Alan Guttmacher, acting director of the National Human Genome Institute
• Leroy (Lee) Hood, co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Systems Biology
• Michael O. Leavitt, chairman of Leavitt Partners and former Secretary of Health and Human Services
• Ralph Snyderman, chancellor emeritus at Duke University and founder and chairman of Proventys

Five initial members of the Board of Directors of the Forum on Personalized Health Care were announced at the 2009 Summit, including Christensen, Hood, Leavitt and Snyderman, in addition to Clay Marsh of Ohio State University. It is anticipated that additional board members will be announced in Q4 2009.

"The creation of the Forum on Personalized Health Care, with its world-class board of directors, represents a major advance in our community's quest to transform health care for individuals and families throughout the world," said Kimball Thomson, executive director of the Forum on Personalized Health Care and chair of the Organizing Committee for the National Summit on Personalized Health Care. "We are grateful for the individuals and organizations that rose to the occasion in this time of economic crisis to make the 2009 Summit possible and enable the creation of the Forum."