Stanford Medicine X events set for Sept. 12-18

This year’s conference will offer opportunities for participants to hone the skills needed to implement new ideas for health-care change in their communities.

- By Tracie White

Lawrence Chu

On the heels of co-hosting a precision medicine workshop at the White House earlier this month, organizers of Stanford Medicine X, an annual conference for health-care innovation, have announced the agenda for the upcoming fall conference.

This year’s conference is being dubbed Medicine X Week because the offerings have expanded and will take place over seven days, Sept. 12-18, instead of three days. Most events will take place at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge on the Stanford University School of Medicine campus.

Medicine X Week will focus on how to realize moonshot ideas for improving health care.

“We’re taking the moonshot thinking and the inspirational talks that Med X is known for and tying it to how to implement these ideas out in the world,” said Lawrence Chu, MD, associate professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford and executive director of the conference. “The whole idea is that change is something each of us can be responsible for and create.”

‘Everyone Included’

Geared toward researchers, patients, providers, designers, technologists and policy leaders, Medicine X aims to provide a framework for health-care innovation, implementation and transformation based on principles of mutual respect and inclusivity, Chu said. This framework, known as “Everyone Included,” a trademark of Stanford Medicine X, was co-developed with a diverse group of health-care stakeholders over the past six years at the conference.

“What we have learned over the years is that what people value most from this conference is its inclusivity,” Chu said. “We bring together researchers, patients and policy leaders to work on problems that matter in health care, to look at emerging technologies from a patient-focused viewpoint, and to create new ideas to solve problems.

“Three days is just not enough to do all this,” he added. “We’ve expanded to a week to create more opportunities for collaborations, for co-creations and participatory design.”

Keynote speakers will be Susannah Fox, chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will discuss building a nation of innovators; Lindred Green, PhD, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, who will talk about flattening the hierarchy in health-care systems; Jonathan Bush, CEO and president of Athenahealth, who will discuss bringing the “network effect” to health care; and LaVerne Council, chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, who will discuss technological innovation at the VA.

The following events will take place during Medicine X Week:

  • MedXMakers Community Event: a free event open to the public that brings community members to join Medicine X in the movement to revolutionize health care.
  • Health Care Safety Design Challenge: a daylong event that focuses on the question, “How should we respond when medicine hurts instead of heals?” This will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders, including those who have experienced medical error, to work on developing solutions by redesigning the system.
  • IDEO Design Challenge: a daylong dive into design thinking for health care to be held in partnership with IDEO, a global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations innovate. This will take place Sept. 15 at IDEO’s headquarters in Palo Alto.
  • Health Care Innovation Summit: a one-day event on Sept. 15 to explore how to address health-care costs.
  • Behavior design workshop: an event led by behavior design expert Kyra Bobinet, MD, to explore neuroscience solutions to health-care problems.


In addition, Medicine X will feature presentations and panels on a range of topics, including a takeoff of the reality television show Shark Tank, co-presented with Astellas Oncology C3 Prize, with entrepreneurs pitching ideas. The Medicine X version will have five finalists who will pitch ideas for improving cancer care in front of a live panel of judges, including, Robert Herjavec, one of the stars of Shark Tank.

Special sessions will address the opioid crisis, policing patient privacy and the future of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative.

Information about the conference and registration are available online.

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu.

2023 ISSUE 3

Exploring ways AI is applied to health care