Campus Life

Healthcare Industry Experts At SXSW: The Future Is Rural

Leaders from Verily, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and Texas A&M explained why rural America will be home to the greatest healthcare technology innovations in the near future.

By Sam Peshek, Texas A&M University Division of Marketing & Communications March 12, 2019

Vivian Lee on harnessing mobile technology to avoid larger, more expensive machines: “Increasingly we’re finding the potential for technology to be much more in everyone’s back pocket with cellphones and small sensor devices. I think the degree with which we see those technologies become a part of people’s daily lives, they’ll be thinking a lot more about prevention rather than treatment.”

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

The Plugging Into Rural Healthcare Solutions SXSW panel at Texas A&M [Power] House.

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

Greg Winfree on sharing resources to bridge gaps in healthcare access and affordability: “We’re going to need communities to work collaboratively and collectively. You can share resources on an issue-by issue basis.”

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

Carrie Byington: “We know that in the 21st century, we are going through a major shift or transformation in healthcare. We are seeing a convergence of different industries coming together to focus on answering some of the big questions in healthcare.”

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

Dan McCoy on overcoming economic obstacles by using drone and driverless vehicle technology: “Community needs assessment is so important, because solving some of those challenge with a drone might be easier than fixing some of those macroeconomic challenges that occur in rural Texas.”

Mark Guerrero/Texas A&M Marketing & Communications

If healthcare industry leaders want to get a glimpse of the future, they will need to look away from big cities and toward the countryside.

Rural healthcare experts and innovators from Verily Life Sciences, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Texas, the Texas A&M Health Science Center and Texas A&M Transportation Institute discussed why rural patients might be the first people to experience the latest healthcare technology, and not their urban counterparts, during a panel discussion on the final day of Texas A&M [Power] House at SXSW.

The Plugging Into Rural Healthcare Solutions panel dissected the role automation and artificial intelligence will play in increasing access and affordability, and why drones could take the place of some medivac helicopters in the very near future.

The panel featured:

Dan McCoy, President of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas
Vivian Lee, President of Health Platforms at Verily (formerly Google X)
Greg Winfree, Director of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Dean Carrie L. Byington, MD, Dean of the Texas A&M College of Medicine, Senior Vice President of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center and Vice Chancellor for Health Services at The Texas A&M University System. (moderator)