Six lessons that guided 2016

1. In the 99% of healthcare that happens outside the doctor’s office, care planning is vital to reaching health goals
A team effort, led by Beth Herlin, developed content for a three part series unearthing the history of Care Plans, delving into the current state of care planning, and what all this means for their future development. This past Fall, Beth traveled to the Stanford Medicine X to give a keynote on Care Plans, and the concepts that the team developed continue to saturate our in-house and client based design.
Care Plans: A 3-part series of the landscape, design and future of personalized healthcare

“Hey, we saw you in the keynote!”

Last year we cheered when Arlington Visual Budget (AVB) won an Innovation Award from the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA). This past weekend the Visual Government (VisGov) team was back again for the MMA annual meeting to continue the conversation on open government. Arlington Town Finance Committee member Alan Jones reported that on Friday, the day started with people telling them that the keynote speaker, futurist Mike Walsh, had given AVB a shout-out along the lines of “the best thing he’s ever seen.” On Saturday, Arlington Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine demonstrated the software at the Mass Selectmen’s Association annual meeting where it was once again well received.

Situated at the event’s trade show, the VisGov team found themselves amongst a wide variety of local and national vendors, ranging from fire suppression systems to the Hampshire council of governments, along with the Massachusetts State Lottery, emergency services products, law firms, even vendors of street lights, parking meters, garbage cans, and social media apps to engage citizens.

O'Reilly OSCON

Involution's hGraph, an open source health metrics visualization, was recently featured in Wired Magazine online, highlighted in the article, “How Restyling the Mundane Medical Record Could Improve Health Care.” The Wired spot discusses hGraph’s strong social component: By tracking the data for entire families hGraph illustrates how some conditions, like obesity and heart disease, can be affected by collective health choices.

Health IT Buzz, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services innovation blog, also mentioned hGraph as a notable entry to the Patient Health Record Graphic Design Contest, where it inspired the judges and challenged the status quo. The article notes that Involution designers “weren’t afraid to think outside the box.” A simple-to-use tool like hGraph has the potential to improve patient care, prevent medication errors, and supply clear health metrics. By making health records usable and interactive, this software can empower doctors, caregivers, and patients to make better health decisions and save lives.

Involution Studios sponsored the inaugural meetup of the Code for America Brigade in Boston on Thursday, October 25. Thanks to everyone who attended! Here are a few photos from the meeting.