WorldFuture 2009: Innovation and Creativity in a Complex World

July 17-19, 2009 • Chicago Hilton • Chicago, Illinois
Professional Members' Forum: July 20, 2009

Health and Wellness Futures

The Future of Diagnosing Disease through Neuroimaging

The ability to image the living brain using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) provides a powerful way to detect specific changes in brain activity that correspond to drug effects and disease. Using small numbers of subjects, this technology can identify both the potential therapeutic and side effects of drugs on the brain, or to identify potential new indications for a drug. Currently, this information is attained after clinical trials costing millions of dollars, leading to the average 15 year, $1 billion cost to develop a new drug. PET technology can be applied to a broad spectrum of psychiatric and neurological disorders, including addiction, anxiety, depression, and dementia. It can also be used to detect the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders years before symptoms appear. By applying imaging to drug development and diagnostic screening, it will become possible to accelerate the creation of more effective treatments and to identify problems in the earliest stages, when intervention can be most effective. With more than 25 million people diagnosed with psychiatric or neurological disorders today, and one in eight of the 78 million baby boomers projected to develop Alzheimer’s disease, the societal benefits of this technology can be profound.

Who should attend: Medical professionals, scientists, and business people.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about new advances in medical imaging of the brain and how these advances can impact their lives in the future with early detection and intervention of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
How this new knowledge can be applied:  Increased awareness by the public and by medical professionals will allow them to take advantage of the tremendous predictive and diagnostic information that will be available through neuroimaging.

Dawn Matthews, president and CEO, Abiant, Inc., Deerfield, Illinois.

key words:  health, aging, brain
issue areas: Health and Wellness Futures, Technology and Science, Futures Methodologies

Living to 100: Possibilities

The latest scientific information on how and why we age, likely sources of changes in future levels of life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, and methodologies that are used to project future life expectancy will be discussed. Risks and opportunities that are associated with the growing number of aged individuals, particularly focusing on their effect on financial institutions and social programs, will also be discussed. We will also touch on the impact that the recent financial crisis might have on a longer-lived population, including greater savings shortfalls and increasing percentages of seniors in the workplace.

Who should attend: Those interested in learning about the forces that may shape the future of longevity.

What you’ll learn: A synopsis of some of the latest scientific information and different viewpoints regarding how and why we age, and the future of total and healthy longevity.  In addition, some of the more significant implications for society and its financial institutions will be addressed.

How this new knowledge can be applied: The aging of the population will have significant impact on most aspects of human society, including financial, social, and cultural conditions, on both the individual and many of its institutions. It will affect the financial services and health-care industries as well as government programs and budgets. 

Sam Gutterman, consulting actuary, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Chicago, Illinois 
Tim Harris, principal, consulting actuary, Milliman Inc., St. Louis, Missouri 

key words:  mortality, longevity, demographics
issue area: Health and Wellness Futures

Evening Keynote

Globalization and Virtualization: The Health Care Reality and Possibility

The world is changing at a feverish rate and health care is a part of that race. Consumers are demanding increased quality, increased services and decreased costs. In order to stay ahead of the curve, health care institutions clinicians and health care information technology (HIT) professionals must be aware of the many global and virtualization trends and imperatives that are instrumental in transforming health care today.

In this session the mechanisms that are transforming the world of health care will be discussed. These include the fact that the world is becoming simultaneous, not sequential; networked and virtual not proprietary; systems-centric, not, professions-centric; info-mediated and leveraged not technical and managed; and integrated not sequestered. In addition lessons learned while deploying clinical information systems will be examined. One such lesson is the need to understand that the process is as important as deploying the tools of technology. Another lesson will speak to the fact that the deployment of standards is an imperative. And an another will address the indispensable aspects of research to HIT.

Kevin Fickenscher, executive vice president of International health care, Perot Systems Corporation, London, England

Who should attend:  Anyone involved in health care.

What you'll learn: Attendees will understand the globalization and virtualization trends that are forcing change and identify at least four of the trends that are changing the face of health care today.

How this new knowledge can be applied: The principles of globalization will be discussed as will examples of how to apply them.

key words: health care, globalization, transformation

issue areas: Health and Wellness Futures, Governance and Communities

A Health-Care System Worth Creating

An exciting range of possibilities are on the horizon for health care, including prevention or control of the major diseases. Yet the United States still spends more to cover fewer people than any major developed nation. And there are significant health disparities, some of which are made worse by differences in health care.

Changes in the White House and the Congress could herald significant reform in health care. The future of health care and IAF’s model for a health care system worth creating will be discussed during this session.

Who should attend: Government officials, business people, planners, and individuals who are interested in health care and its costs.
 What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about major advances in health and health care, including ones related to diabetes and cancer; major advances that could reduce health disparities–e.g., focusing on the social and economic determinants of health, improving healthy eating and active living; health-care reform potentials in the United States, as well as preferred health system designs.
 How this new knowledge can be applied: This information can be applied to considering or reconsidering the aspirations and planning of your organization; your personal sense of longevity; your personal and professional sense of your preferred future for health and health care and what you can do to make it happen.  

Clement Bezold, founder and chairman of the board, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia
Craig Bettles, futurist and researcher, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia 

key words:  health care
issue area: Health and Wellness Futures

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
World Future Society Headquarters
7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
Web site: www.wfs.org.
Telephone: 800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274; fax: 301-951-0394