Event Date: March 26th, 2025
Time: 8:30-10:00 am
Location: Zoom: https://kcdigitaldrive.zoom.us/j/81300373746?pwd=lWliLbTAZOAwKRa3xYrtRbXiMtbSsK.1
Admission: Free
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You are invited to learn about two digital solutions related to social drivers of health and population health.
The first is Pear Suite, an operating system for community health workers, doulas, and other roles engaging face-to-face with the community. It has several clients in Kansas. Pear Suite enables frontline public health workers to assess and address social drivers of health challenges, boost engagement through an omni-channel communication system, manage care plans and referrals, and bill for services with health plans. The functions are meant to digitize client and care management, create a community with experienced peers, and connect community members to skilled providers. Additional support is provided by links to continuing education. There are tools for organizational management and health plans using community data, insights, and expertise of community-based providers addressing social drivers of health to reduce costs, improve quality metrics, and achieve accountability responsibilities
Our presenter will be CEO, Colby Takeda. Colby has an extensive history with serving organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, and he has a bachelor’s degree from Willamette, and MBA from the University of Hawai’i, an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. Along with his hands-on role with Pear Suite, he is pursuing an Ed.D. from Columbia University. He says he is devoted to improving population health, strengthening cross-sector relationships, and helping others achieve their goals.
In our second presentation, we will have a chance to gain insight from Children’s Mercy Research Institute on the topic “Informatics Resources for Geospatial Analysis of Research Cohorts”. This will cover the combination of CMRI’s geomarker work and SCALE, the Spatial Cohort Analysis and Location Explorer. There is a variety of value to this work, including the ability to understand the circumstances from which research subjects and patients are drawn.
Mark Hoffman, Ph.D., will lead us in this demonstration and discussion. Dr. Hoffman is a prominent figure in the field of biomedical informatics and research technology. He serves as the Chief Research Information Officer at Children’s Mercy Kansas City and the Children’s Mercy Research Institute. In this role, he leads efforts to enhance research through advanced data, applications, and technology resources.
Dr. Hoffman earned his PhD in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a minor in Biotechnology. His career includes significant contributions at Cerner Corporation, where he advanced to Vice President for Genomics and Research. He later joined the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) as a faculty member, founding the Center for Health Insights.
Dr. Hoffman is also a Research Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center and an Associate Member of the Kansas University Cancer Center. His work spans bioinformatics, data science, and high-performance computing, with a focus on improving health and research equity. He has delivered a TEDx talk on the “Envirome,” holds 25patents, and is a member of the National Academy of Inventors.
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Every month, we bring together a group of health care stakeholders to learn and share about technology and innovation projects happening in the region–and occasionally related topics from outside the Greater Kansas City area. Our stakeholders include hospitals and the health care system, city and state government officials, health IT firms and other corporate partners, startups working in health and wellness, and other civic organizations. The meetings are open, though not widely broadcast. They generally happen on the last Wednesday of the month, 8:30-10:00 am.
We send out an email agenda and calendar invite to this stakeholder list, which we loosely call the Health Innovation Team. If you wish to be added to the email list, please send a note to jfitzpatrick@kcdigitaldrive.org.