Often in current news, we have seen an intensive focus on the importance of personal health. It is becoming more prioritized by employers and communities to foster an environment in which the community is healthy on a mental, physical and emotional level, as well as in the lives of the specific individuals who inhabit the area. With the increase in medical technology already described in previous forum sessions, there is no topic more in the hot seat than mental illness and personal health and how each of these aspects relates to the overall health of the community.
Here is how the Lake Nona Impact Forum described changing technology in promoting healthier communities and individuals: “New approaches to national healthcare policy will certainly be impacted by digital and mobile technology, which has the opportunity to transform medical practice from the population-based approach of treating illness to individualized medicine. Dr. Richard Carmona, the 17th U.S. Surgeon General and current Chief of Health Innovations at Canyon Ranch, led a riveting discussion about how digital technology and genetic knowledge could fundamentally change the way modern medicine deals with patients and diseases.”
Given the rising rates of mental illness, and the renewed focus on the impact of mental health on daily lives, speakers like Dr. Carmona and Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, touched on the costs of mental healthcare, the innovations in mental healthcare being made currently, and what it means to have a society that is all the more mentally healthy.
Mental health presents itself not only in how we express our personal thoughts and feelings each day but also in our interactions with other people. Our mental health can often be a telltale sign of our physical health as well, which was another important and reoccurring theme throughout the forums that followed.
In talks such as “Breaking the Mold for Medicine” and “Go With Your Gut/ Understanding Inflammation and Its Impact on Health and Wellbeing,” there was intense discussion on the importance of taking care of your individual body and monitoring both your diet and exercise to help maintain a good quality of life. There was specific focus placed upon the health of the immune system as well as what prevention of inflammation can do for your overall health. “Your thoughts, your feelings, your diet, stress, exercise, environmental toxins are washing over genes to create the expression of who you are right now,” said Dr. Mark Hyman, board chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine.
While focus on individual health is incredibly important, much of the committee discussions revolved around the topic of smart cities. A smart city, according to a variety of sources from inside and outside the Lake Nona Impact Forum, includes finding creative solutions to foster healthier communities, complete with “smart” solutions, including technology, health and wellness advising, and medical care. These healthy communities could include increases in the number of safety features a community has access to, better management of diseases like the flu, and improvements in conservation efforts based on scientific research.
Lake Nona has already been noticed as a high-performing and dynamic, developing smart city, which has has seen significant advances in medical, sport and lifestyle technology that have caused a variety of other developing communities to take notice. “Smart cities is not about open data, but the people. Digital technology can enable and transform lives,” said Anil Menon, global president, Smart and Connected Communities, Cisco, before cautioning the public not to leave the development of smart cities up to technologists because “we’ll screw it up.”
Menon made this statement in part because smart cities are designed to rely so heavily on the people who live in them. The data collected and the information drawn from a more meaningful understanding of what personal health and wellness means cannot be computed by simple mathematics; it requires real humans to be involved and understood, which was a focus of so much of the overall forum.
Read on to the rest of our topics regarding the Lake Nona Impact Forum to find out about the culture involved in creating the healthier people and communities of tomorrow.
