Changing the culture of Transportation + Health + Meetups : TechiesDCHealth – Washington, DC USA

Jeff Olson from @altaplanning at the Center for Total Health View Techies DC Health 38202 on Flickr.com

I think we achieved what we set out to do last evening at the Transportation Techies (@TechiesDC) Transportation + Health Meetup at the Center for Total Health (@KPtotalHealth). We connected the transportation tech community to health and vice versa. We (Erin Meade @erinm81) held the healthiest meetup in the universe (look at the food – no pizza, no sugary drinks!).

Lots of items of interest:

• People in this community are excited about data. “We don’t just need decisions. We need the data behind the decisions,” as Tracy Loh, Research Director of Rails to Trails told us (@busysparrow @RailstoTrails).
• They’re REALLY excited about data that’s easy to access and work with, and in this era of open data, not all datasets are easy to access and work with
• The data that’s out there does make for great apps, from Mark Silverberg’s (@skram) – “Ok, Glass, I’ll walk an extra metro stop” app, to Michael Jantzen’s Metro heat map showing health services in range of active transportation, to Chris Pyke, PhD @ChrisPyke from @USGBC cell phone tracking data that will connect green building and green behaviors.
• The 80-foot video touch wall devoted to walking is happy to share space with a gorgeous Capital Bikeshare bike (@bikeshare)
• Interesting inclusion fact: Jeff Olson, told us that the design of the bike share system and bikes is associated with 31% riders who are women, which contrasts to 8% for bicyclists overall
• Our world is changing, this is our 1968 moment. (A Walk Through New York – Designed to Move – is this our 1968 moment in creating active cities? | Ted Eytan, MD)

All of the presentations from last night’s event may be found online, of course.

Here’s mine, it’s the welcome and the “Why” around a health system being engaged in transportation and active transportation. The answer is, the health system should be, if it is interested in health. We are, and as Jeff mentioned in his presentation, Kaiser Permanente was awarded the Business Advocate of the Year award by the Alliance for Biking & Walking (@BikeWalk).

(Yes, that is the hug timer, it came back for another performance :))

Last night’s meetup was co-sponsored by Kaiser Permanente Digital Technology & Operations (@KPDigitalHealth) and Every Body Walk (@EveryBodyWalk)