Liftoff PGH: Regional stakeholders unite to prepare for September 2020 innovation summit

Thought leaders across various sectors of health care, research, and technology brainstorming ideas for next year’s Liftoff PGH summit.

Thought leaders across various sectors of health care, research, and technology packed JHF's top-floor conference room last month to brainstorm plans for Liftoff PGH next year.

Liftoff PGH is the much-anticipated un-conventional convention that JHF is planning for September 15-16, 2020. It's an opportunity for the Pittsburgh region's healthcare practitioners, technologists, entrepreneurs to step back, breathe and bring a fresh, imaginative, even playful mindset to the future of health care.

"We want to make sure Pittsburgh is prepared for the changes in healthcare in the coming decades – for the sake of patients, medical professionals, insurers, entrepreneurs, and working people," said JHF President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein. "You are either structured for innovation, or you're not. If we don't start now, we are going to be left behind by other regions."

To that end, JHF's Liftoff Team on July 25 brought together more than two dozen practitioners, researchers and funders to brainstorm on the 2020 summit's five themes. The meeting was the first of several that JHF is hosting over the coming months to craft the Liftoff gathering.

JHF Director of Innovation Mara Leff leads a Liftoff brainstorming session on July 29.

Liftoff participants will learn about and play with those themes in Exploration rooms at the David L Lawrence Convention Center. The themes are shaping up as:

• Workforce and Education
• Technology Advancements and Entrepreneurship
• Health Spaces New and Old
• The New Patient
• Payment and Regulation

Attending the first advisory committee meeting were thought leaders from the region's leading universities and medical research organizations, industry, startups, medical professionals and nonprofits focused on workforce development.

"It's exciting to see such a diverse group of stakeholders provide different perspectives around the key themes," said Mara Leff, JHF's director of innovation and staff lead on Liftoff PGH. "They are really bringing these ideas to life."

Additional advisory committee meetings are planned for the fall, as are subcommittees that will develop the Exploration rooms. To get involved, contact Leff at 412-594-2579 or leff@jhf.org. Watch for updates at LiftoffPGH.org