Why should I go to the mHealth Summit?
You’d think the annual mHealth Summit, set for next month at National Harbor, Md., would be right up my alley, but unless something changes very soon, it looks like I’ll be missing it for the third year in a row.
In 2012, it was a last-minute decision to skip due to a death in the family. Last year, the publication I would have covered it for was bringing three people already, two of whom were new and needed to experience all this mobile health in one place a lot more than I did.
This year, it’s coming down to my decision. At the moment, I don’t have anyone who absolutely needs me to cover it for them. (If you need me to help, let me know ASAP.) It also would be highly inconvenient and expensive for me to go.
As a freelancer, I’m usually on my own for travel expenses. Normally, the Washington area is a cheap trip for me, since I have family to stay with in Montgomery County, Md., and fairly good access to the Metrorail system and Interstate 270. However, National Harbor — a developer’s euphemism for struggling Oxon Hill — is just past the southern tip of D.C., near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Capital Beltway. That’s a good 5o miles from where I would ordinarily stay, and not on a Metro line. Yes, there’s a shuttle from a Metro station and a water taxi from Old Town Alexandria, Va., but it would still take more than an hour to get to either place via Metro.
The handful of hotels in this isolated development are all more than $100 a night, and the conference now stretches four full days. As a kicker, this would be the end of a multi-city trip that already is taking me to the West Coast and the South before heading back to the Midwest. So there’s that to consider. With airfare and meals, it will cost me a good $700 for the privilege of doing little more than blogging for not a lot of money unless I find a solid client, and find one fast, before I book the rest of my trip, which I’m doing this week.
Why does the mHealth Summit need to be four full days anyway, not counting the pre-conference seminars that could keep some people there for six days? That’s actually longer than the huge HIMSS conference, which usually starts on a Monday and ends in the early afternoon on a Thursday — and HIMSS owns the mHealth Summit now.
How much mobile health is there anyways? Mobile health already is melding into wireless health, digital health, connected health and probably a few more variations of health that escape my mind right now. In a few years, they’ll all be part of health IT, e-health or just plain “health” anyway. Do we really need four full days of it in an isolated “resort” in a cold climate? (Fine, it’s not too far from Reagan National Airport, but good luck to you if you fly into Dulles or Baltimore-Washington International.)
Neil,
The last few points you make are applicable to any conferences – not just the ones that cost inordinate time and money to attend.
We have reached the tipping point where all conferences aren’t worth it. HIMSS, Health2.0, Partners CHIME, iHT2, and then all of the user conferences out there mean that the cream cheese is already spread pretty thin on the bagel. With a poor track record of focused discussion and session curation from HIMSS (and to your point an added day this year) – the value is really moving from learning and strategic networking towards a pure sales conference.
Save your money for an Apple Watch ;-)
Naveen
I’m going to be skipping mHealth Summit this year as well. I’ve been disappointed with the last couple and mostly went to do some meetings that were unrelated to the conference. The travel is brutal too.
Reminds me of those Cardiologists who don’t go to conventions anymore because they don’t get enough sponsorship to be able to turn left on entering the plane…
Are you saying I’m spoiled? How about you try spending hundreds out of your own pocket to go to an event that you know won’t be worth your while?
Not at all but the dynamics of the mHealth industry and completely new routes to market that it opens up for healthcare IT firms (eg. Google Adwords, the Apple Appstore, etc) are possibly making it unviable for firms that pay journalists to cover the announcements they make at tradeshows.
I’m in the same boat as you in that I spend my own money going to trade shows and I wouldn’t dream of going to one where there wasn’t a return on investment so perhaps while it would’ve be great to catch up again this might just be one that you keep an eye on from afar?
Thankfully that shouldn’t be too difficult as all the main talks are live streamed and free to view (perhaps another reason why sponsoring Journalist travel has a lower priority amongst vendors?).
Personally I wouldn’t miss the mHealth Summit as it saves me a fortune in time and travel as I see it as first and foremost an opportunity to meet with and learn from 5,000 delegates from all over the world who are passionate about the opportunity for the future of medicine to lie in the device we’ve all got in our pocket.
David, I didn’t mean a vendor sponsoring me, I meant a publication needing help with its coverage. Everyone I regularly work for either has it covered or I’d be working completely “on spec.”
About Cardiologists who want to turn left when entering the plane:
I don’t think they are spoiled at all, I actually think there’s very few people on a plane who are more deserving of a comfy seat. The ones I know and work with are incredibly hard working professionals and they work with Patients at some of the most emotionally extreme moments of our lives.
But I’m not going to lose sleep if big medical device or pharma brands prioritise their spend on R&D and Patient safety opportunities ahead of things like sending Doctors to events that they’re only interested in going to if they include picking up the tab for a family holiday ;)