"TEDMED is the Burning Man for health aficionados," said Robin Hogen, RWJF's vice president for communications, one of several RWJF team members who attended the event in Washington, D.C., last week. The event brings together "public health advocates, clinicians, biomedical researchers, break-the-mold thinkers, prodigies, grateful patients and artists," Hogen said. TEDMED offers a unique opportunity to interact with a brilliant array of people who have one thing in common: finding new approaches to improving health and health care -- an objective that's near and dear to Pioneer's mission. It's not surprising, then, that a number of Pioneer grantees spoke at this year's event.

Here are a few moments from TEDMED 2013 that stood out for RWJF staff:

On October 15 and 16 in New York City, WIRED and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will launch a new conversation on the future of health care with 200 expert leaders from the worlds of medicine, science, technology, and business.

The WIRED Health Conference: Living By Numbers will deliver a clear, compelling argument that today there is a new opportunity to bring data into real-time decision-making for doctors, researchers, hospitals, and individuals. This combination has the potential to transform people’s lives. Learn more about RWJF’s support of Living By Numbers.

Event Live Stream

View the conference agenda

#WIREDhealth Twitter Stream

Pioneer is dedicated to creating the places and spaces where innovative, forward-thinking ideas are hatched and cultivated. That's why we are excited to partner with WIRED magazine to explore how real-time, real-world data can lead us to better health at Living by Numbers, WIRED's first-ever health conference on October 15 and 16 in New York City.

What are the opportunities for bringing data into real-time decision-making for health and health care? How can individually generated, real-world data transform research or clinical care and lead to better health? Living by Numbers will bring 200 innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and thought leaders together to have a vigorous and open discussion across sectors—to generate ideas and help them take hold. It is also an opportunity for the tech sector to see the power and influence their tools and expertise can have on the field of health and health care.

My recent journey to Mayo Clinic’s Transform 2012 began with a bike ride. I was up at 4:00 a.m. and drove for an hour to join hundreds of other cyclists in northern New Jersey for a 7:15 a.m. ride start. 107 miles and 7,600 feet of climbing later, I uploaded my ride stats to Strava, chatted some with colleagues, grabbed a bit of post-ride lunch, and blasted home. I made it to the Philadelphia airport just in time for my 7:00 p.m. flight. After a connection in Chicago, I arrived in Minneapolis around midnight, rented a car, and then drove 80 miles in the early morning hours across rural Minnesota, eventually arriving at my hotel in the town of Rochester.

Bright and early that morning at the meeting, feeling surprisingly bushy-tailed, I encountered a large gathering, almost like a mirage rising from the prairie, of curious, engaged people talking earnestly about how they were transforming American health care. But of course it wasn’t a mirage. It was real and impressive. Our national audacious effort to transform the health care colossus from its current state of dysfunction and inefficiency is impossibly complex and difficult. We know that. Nevertheless, my reaction to Transform 2012 was not simply because I found a large gathering focused on that health care transformation. No, the truly remarkable thing is that here was yet another of many large gatherings of engaged people working all over the United States to transform health care.

At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), our mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Good health and health care are fundamental measures of our success as a nation. That’s why we are pleased to support this year’s TEDMED conference (April 10-13), which brings together leaders from a wide array of medical and non-medical disciplines to explore the future of health and medicine.

In our 40 years, RWJF has learned several lessons that led us to support this year’s TEDMED conference. We’ve learned the importance of working with partners and building on the efforts of others; facilitating collaboration among unlikely allies; resisting the illusion of complete understanding; and being persistent.