One of the Best mHealth Conferences in the World: mHealth Summit Israel. I'll see you there.

As the ubiquity of mHealth devices and applications increases, mHealth companies, investors, governments, professional advisors, and media outlets must become more educated on the resulting opportunities.

Pramod K. Gaur, Ph.D., Vice President of Telehealth at UnitedHealth group broadly defines mHealth like so:

The ability to allow patients and providers to easily and quickly connect and exchange health data via information communication technology from anywhere at any time to facilitate continuum of care delivery at lower costs, and improve outcomes.

Access to healthcare, quality of healthcare, and the experience of patients, payers, regulators, and providers is in flux, driven by an aging global population, increase in chronic diseases, population growth, rising wealth, and lengthening life expectancy. (PDF source)

The guiding mission of all mHealth companies is to improve the overall health and wellbeing of patients. All over the world, thought leaders are fusing the progress of frontier technologies like sensors, cloud computing, wearables, data analysis, and machine learning with cutting edge life science research to create new markets and displace inefficient, opaque ones. Simultaneously, individuals are learning more about their genetic profiles, disease probabilities, and the availability of healthcare and preventative techniques. For example, rather than the paternal doctor being the gatekeeper of medical information and diagnoses, hardware and software applications and algorithms will provide individuals with a range of scenarios, costs, and outcomes. Doctors will provide expert consultations, and the health and well-being of patients will improve. This is only one of many situations in which mHealth will positively impact the global healthcare industry.

This coming Monday, December 15th, the second annual mHealth Israel Conference brings together global digital health leaders from Walgreens, Microsoft, Becton Dickinson, Cleveland Clinic, Sony, AXA, Allscripts, Klick Health, and Orange to discuss mHealth in a TED talk format. The summit culminates in a business competition, where C-level executives including Harry Lieder, Chief Medical Officer, of Walgreens, Noel Harvey Grey, VP of R&D at Becton Dickinson, VP at Microsoft, Tom Sudow, Director of Business Development at the Cleveland Clinic, and Thierry Zylberberg, Head of Healthcare at Orange judge a group of eight finalists.

The finalists include:

• Breezometer maps air pollution in real time and provides street resolution air pollution data to customers through API’s and big data reporting.
• Voiceitt is a voice recognition software that gives millions of people with speech disabilities the ability to “talk” in their own voice.
• Medivizor helps people coping with serious or chronic illness get cutting-edge, reliable, personalized health information that matters most.
• Lifegraph is a platform that allows psychiatrists to better monitor their patients and detect deterioration in their mental state.
• Myndlift provides a drug-free solution to improve concentration ability using mobile and wearable technology.
• Sweetch helps people reduce their risk of becoming diabetic, through a game-changing platform that predicts personal diabetes risk and drives long-term behavioral change that significantly reduces diabetes risk.
• mPharma provides real-time data on physician's prescriptions and patient drug consumption for governments and pharmaceutical companies in Africa.
• Intendu develops personalized and adaptive brain rehabilitation software for easy and effective usage at the home and at the clinic.

In step with the theme of this year’s conference, the “Consumerization of Healthcare,” the forthcoming patient-centered approach has profound implications for the Israeli economy. With the highest R&D/GDP ratio in the world and highest number of scientists, technicians, and engineers per capita in the world, 16 Technology Transfer Offices commercializing university research, and a footprint from multinationals like Philips Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, Perrigo, and GE Healthcare, Israeli entrepreneurs are positioned to have an enormous impact on the global intersection of digital tools and health.

Across the Atlantic, U.S. entrepreneurs and investors are leading the charge, with digital health VC investments increasing 987% since 2009 (see chart below). Although Biotech/Pharma, another strength of Israel, continues to receive the lion’s share of VC money, Digital Health is approaching fast:

Thus for Israeli mHealth companies, investors, professional advisors, and media outlets, learning about US regulatory trends, Big Pharma’s use of mobile applications and mHealth, how to successfully partner with U.S. insurance carriers and hospitals, medical data use cases, applications, and insights, as well as topics like information technology, diagnostics, healthcare marketing, and engagement are key to success. Held in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, the Center of Excellence in Wireless IT (CEWIT), and State University of New York, this year’s conference will foster relationships and social collaboration between the Israeli and U.S. digital health and IT companies. Want in on it? Register here!

Josh Cline is President and CEO of The Cline Group, President and CEO of Cline Ventures, and General Partner of INE Ventures. You can see more of his thoughts here. Follow him on Twitter.