TEDMED Announces 2013 Conference Date, Top 20 Great Challenges, Global Expansion of TEDMEDLive Simulcast Program

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDMED, www.TEDMED.com, the annual multi-disciplinary gathering where leaders from all sectors of society come together to explore the promise of technology and potential of human achievement in health and medicine, announced today that TEDMED 2013 registration is now open and the event will take place April 16 - 19, 2013 at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.  TEDMED also announced that its 2013 conference event will expand the 2013 TEDMEDLive simulcast program globally.

The TEDMED 2012 conference introduced the Great Challenges Program, (challenges.tedmed.com), an initiative to gather interdisciplinary perspectives and promote understanding of some of the most persistent and complex issues facing health and medicine.

On-site Delegates and simulcast participants voted and collectively selected 20 of the 51 nominated Great Challenges that will be further explored throughout the coming year via a series of interactive webinars and community discussions.

"Moving TEDMED to Washington, D.C. has been an enormous success.  America is at its best when we draw on the strengths of all of us with a common goal and mission of improving the state of health and medicine. We are knocking down the walls between the silos by creating a place where everyone, medical and non-medical, can participate in the health and medicine conversation.  I am also exceptionally pleased that our multi-disciplinary TEDMED community will stay connected through the Great Challenges program during the coming year," said Jay Walker, Curator, TEDMED.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring the Great Challenges program and talks on the top 20 challenges. Each Challenge effort is led by an advocate who is a leader in the field. They are:

• Inventing Wellness Programs That Work – Advocate: Rajiv Kumar, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of ShapeUp
• The Caregiver Crisis – Advocate: Suzanne Geffen Mintz, National Family Caregivers Association Co-founder
• The Role of the Patient – Advocate: Dave deBronkart, "e-Patient Dave"
• Coming to Terms With the Obesity Crisis (Adults) – Advocate: Christine C. Ferguson, Professor, The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services; Director, STOP Obesity Alliance
• Achieving More Medical Innovation, More Affordably – Advocate: Don Rucker, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Siemens
• Managing Chronic Diseases Better – Advocate: Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer, Cleveland Clinic; M. Gorman and Family Chair, Wellness Institute
• Improving Medical Communication – Advocate: James Merlino, Chief Experience Officer, Cleveland Clinic Health System
• Reducing Childhood Obesity – Advocate: David S. Ludwig, Director of the Optimal Weight for Life and New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital
• Making Prevention Popular and Profitable – Advocate: John Clymer, Chief Strategy Officer, Alliance to Make US Healthiest; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Loma Linda University School of Public Health; Member, U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force
• Coming to Grips With End-of-life Care – Advocate: Paul Malley, President, Aging With Dignity
• Waking Up to the Causes and Effects of Sleep Deprivation – Advocate: Russell Sanna, Executive Director, Harvard Medical School, Division of Sleep Medicine
• Addressing the Impact of Poverty on Health – Advocate: Sonia Sarkar, Chief of Staff, Health Leads
• Faster Adoption of Best Practices – Advocate: Kedar Mate, Country Director, IHI South Africa Program; Faculty, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine, Cornell University, New York
• Coping With the Impact of Stress – Advocate: Paul Lehrer, Professor of Psychiatry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
• Shaping the Future of Personalized Medicine – Advocate: Rebecca Sutphen, Director of Clinical Genetics, Moffitt Cancer Center
• Promoting Active Lifestyles – Advocate: Andrew Rundle, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
• Preparing for the Dementia Tsunami – Advocate: Jeffrey L. Cummings, Director, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health; Andrea and Joseph Hahn Chair of Neurotherapeutics, Neurological Institute
• Addressing Healthcare Costs and Payment Systems – Advocate: Anne Gauthier, Senior Program Director, National Academy for State Health Policy
• Addressing Whole-Patient Care – Advocate: Blair Sadler, Associate Clinical Professor, UCSD Schools of Medicine, Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Eliminating Medical Errors -  Advocate: Paula Griswold, Executive Director, Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors

Via TEDMEDLive, another new initiative introduced this year, an estimated 50,000 remote participants joined the proceedings via 300 auditoriums and 1,500 clinics and healthcare locations from all 50 states, as well as locations in Canada and Mexico.  TEDMEDLive locations included teaching hospitals, medical schools, research institutions, university life science departments, state and federal government agencies, health-oriented corporations and non-profits.

TEDMED 2012 headline speakers included: Otis Brawley/American Cancer Society; Larry Brilliant/Skoll Global Threats Fund; Dr. Lynda Chin/MD Anderson Cancer Center; Francis Collins/NIH; Katie Couric/Stand Up To Cancer; Thomas Frieden/CDC; John Hoffman/HBO Documentary Films; Peggy Hamburg/FDA; Billie Jean King/Health and Social Justice Advocate; Gail McGovern/American Red Cross; Gabby Reece/Women's Health Advocate; and Renowned Biologist E.O. Wilson.

Institutions of excellence that were represented by speakers and Delegates at TEDMED2012 included The American Cancer Society, The American Red Cross, BioDigital Systems, The Boulis Laboratory at Emory ALS Center, Weill Cornell Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, The California Institute of Technology, Center for Complex Network Research, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Duke University, Equal Justice Initiative; Harvard University and Harvard School of Public Health, HBO Documentary Films, Health Leads, mc10, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education, The Michor Laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, The National Institutes of Health, NYU School of Medicine, Penn State University,  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Texas Heart Institute, USC Center for Body Computing, Quest Diagnostics, The Texas Heart Institute, The Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, SeventyK, Reuters Health, Children's Hospital Boston, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, VGo and the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network.

TEDMED is the world's only TED-licensed event focused solely on innovation and breakthrough thinking across all of health and medicine.  TEDMED 2012 featured 71 preeminent leaders in health, medicine, science, technology, business, government, academia, media and the arts who spoke before a sold-out audience of more than 1,600 Delegates.  Among the Delegates who participated 200 were TEDMED Frontline Scholarship attendees.

TEDMED Sponsors
The TEDMED conference and mission are generously supported by major U.S. sponsors, including some of the world's best-known companies and thought leaders in the realm of health and medicine: Booz/Allen/Hamilton, The California Endowment, The Cleveland Clinic, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mars Inc., Siemens and Xerox.

TEDMEDLive Simulcast Sponsors
TEDMEDLive is sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Siemens, and The California Endowment.

For more information: http://www.tedmed.com/conference/live

TEDMED Contributing Sponsors
IOMEDIA, Panasonic, Steelcase and Nurture.

TEDMED Talks and Updates
TEDMED.com makes all of its stage presentations available as videos at www.TEDMED.com at no cost after the conclusion of the conference. Videos are also posted on TED.com, YouTube and CNN.com for free online viewing.

TEDMED issues monthly email bulletins.  To subscribe, please send an email to: [email protected].

Follow TEDMED at Twitter via @TEDMED.

An RSS feed of TEDMED news and video releases is available via the TEDMED Blog, blog.tedmed.com.

TEDMED, LLC is an independent organization operated under a special license from the nonprofit TED conference.  TEDMED is the only authorized, independent TED conference focusing on the fields of health and medicine.  For more information, please visit www.TEDMED.com.

SOURCE TEDMED