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We are excited to announce that Ubiqi Health was recently accepted into the Springboard Enterprises Life Sciences Forum! Springboard Enterprises is a venture catalyst that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts to build great women-led businesses. By joining the Springboard program, Ubiqi Health joins the elite ranks of alumni companies such as Zipcar, iRobot, ConstantContact, and ViaCell. Eleven promising companies were selected for the 2012 Life Sciences forum following an application and interview process.

The Springboard Enterprises Life Sciences forum focuses on companies in the health services, healthcare information technology, medical device, and biotech fields. Springboard provides these companies with opportunities to develop partnerships, prepare for fundraising, and meet potential investors. Following the kick-off bootcamp, which was held from May 9th-10th, ventures  are matched with a group of coaches who are curated to best suit the development requirements of each business. The coaches help each venture in areas such as business model development, market positioning, partnerships, finance, and legal concerns, leading up to the final assessment presentations in August.

Stayed tuned for more news about our experiences with Springboard!

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Washington, D.C., attempting to simultaneously attend two major healthcare conferences: DTC National and TEDMED. Having recently received my “thank you” card from the folks at TEDMED, I was reminded that I had yet to write about my experiences. For a more detailed play-by-play from April 10-14, you can check out my Twitter feed on @jacthong.

Now that I’ve had some time ruminate on the key trends and opportunities, for me, the one thing that stood out was the huge opportunity in leveraging health data – both from data that is already being collected, and from data that can be collected from ordinary people like ourselves with the right apps and sensors. Several of the speakers and exhibits highlighted the insights that can be gained from using data to understand and address health issues at different levels: individual, organizational, and societal. For me, the highlights on this topic were:

The GE Healthymagination Exhibit

During one of the breaks at TEDMED, I had the opportunity to play with the interactive maps with representations of stats on healthcare services, outcomes, and risks at a national, regional and local level. I was intrigued to see the level of green grocer access my county in Massachusetts has, compared to others. The other factors I looked at were smoking rates and air pollution levels. The maps available online only go to a national, rather than county level, and don’t have all the same factors displayed, but they are still very interesting to look at. Check them out for yourself here.

Todd Park’s rousing call for the liberation of health data from silos

In his talk, Todd Park, a former health IT entrepreneur and now the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Government Department of Health and Human Services, evangelized the need for startups to create innovations that leverage the vast amounts of public health data to help people get healthier and help organizations optimize the way they deliver health care. His presentation really made me feel that it was up to me, my team, and all the other health technology innovators out there to go and change the world through our work. Even though it’s impossible to feel that jazzed-up every single minute of the day, there is really nothing like it when that wave of inspiration hits you. Thanks Todd!

Dr. Leslie Saxon’s presentation about the Every Heartbeat project

Every Heartbeat is  data collection project that uses phone-connected sensors and smart phone apps to collect heart beat data from people around the world. With this data, the project aims to create analytics tools to identify patterns, help solve health problems, and ultimately, make us all more healthy. Dr. Saxon’s presentation was on the last day of TEDMED, and I found it to be an excellent example of the kinds of innovation that Todd Park was speaking about: apps and analytics tools that help us leverage vast amounts of health data. What Dr. Saxon and her team are working on is really amazing – her talk was a great way to cap off those intense, inspirational days at TEDMED.

If you have never been to TEDMED, and have an interest in medicine, healthcare or are a patient activist, I urge you to try to go next year. The organization offers scholarships, so start looking into it now. You won’t regret going!

Our hosting provider needs to do some maintenance work on our server on the late evening of Monday, April 9th around 9pm to 1am U.S. Eastern Time.

We wanted to let you know in advance because during that time, our site and service will be offline. You will still be able to access the mobile apps in offline mode, but any new posts you create will only be sent through to the database when the Ubiqi service comes back online.

We apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks for your patience!

We will be providing updates via Twitter (@ubiqi) and Facebook, so please make sure to follow us or contact us if you have any questions.

Happy Presidents’ Day! For those of you who have the day off work today, we hope that you are able to enjoy the time to relax and spend time with your families.

With Presidents’ Day in the United States largely being promoted commercially as a day of shopping and bargain-hunting, we thought we’d actually try to give some thought to the people (namely George Washington and Abraham Lincoln) who led the country in its early days. This got us thinking… “Were any of the U.S. Presidents migraine sufferers?”

The answer is yes! The following U.S. Presidents were thought to have exhibited a history of migraines:

- Thomas Jefferson

- John Adams

- Abraham Lincoln

- Ulysses S. Grant

- Woodrow Wilson

If you are interested in reading more, Randolph Evans, MD provides a detailed discussion in his piece, “Migraine and the Presidency” in Practical Neurology.

Happy Valentine’s Day! We here at Ubiqi Health are not huge fans of the one-day love bonanza – shouldn’t love be expressed every day? But the fact that it is Valentine’s Day does did make us reflect on relationships and how they can be impacted by chronic conditions like migraine.

We talk a lot about how you can help yourself take control of your migraines and feel better, but what about what your partner can do for you? In order to help partners of migraineurs learn how to give better support and care, we’ve compiled a few resources we thought could be helpful.

Do you have any others? Please sure them with us!

- Blog piece from Migrainista about her experiences with how migraine affects her romantic life. We thought that this post could help non-migraineurs understand the other side of the story.

- Me, My Girl and Her Migraines – A Man Shares How He Deals With His Partner’s Chronic Condition. This piece gives the caregiver side of story.

- Article from Everyday Health on understanding what a person with migraine is going through, with some good tips on how to be a good caregiver.

- eHow piece on surviving a relationship with a person who has migraines with some more tips on supporting your loved one.

In the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing a lot about different things our friends in the migraine community are doing to help themselves feel better. This probably is due to many people having made New Year’s Resolutions, but whether you made resolutions or not, it’s never too late to think about small steps you can take to get on track to feeling better.

You may already know that you should start some healthier habits, but have you got started? Here are three simple things to try  along with some resources about how it can help you.

1. Eat fewer processed foods. It may seem hard at first, but check the labels of the food you buy in the supermarket. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, don’t eat it! Many ingredients in processed foods, like preservatives and MSG are common migraine triggers. Here’s a piece by Ellen from Migraine.com on how she learned to eat “clean”.

2. Drink more water. You may not realize it, but when we get busy we can forget to drink enough water. And even though there is water in juice and soda, nothing beats plain old H20. This piece from The Greatist talks about how staying hydrated can keep your migraines at bay.

3. Sleep on a regular schedule. Easier said than done, right? Not getting enough sleep could trigger your migraines, and then because of the pain, you may have trouble sleeping, leading to a vicious cycle. This article from Psychology Today discusses the importance getting a good night’s sleep.

If you have some other ideas to share with us, let us know!

After a few weeks of January silence, we thought we’d surface with a little list of a few great migraine blogs that we stumbled upon recently. Migraine blogs can be an excellent source of inspiration, tips and information. We really commend the work that these authors do to share their experiences and thoughts. If you find any you think we should know about, please tell us! Here are a few we found that we wanted to share:

- That M Word. This is a lively blog with a good mix of serious and fun pieces. We especially like the post on the author’s success with National Headache Foundation diet.

- Migraine Chick. We like this blog because it is so visual. We love the photos and adore the line drawings.

- The Migraine Chronicles. This blog is full of the Sarah Hackley’s personal experiences in dealing with a range of aspects of migraine, from different treatments to how coping emotionally.

- The Daily Headache. We enjoy Kerry Smyres’  mix of humor and good information as she documents her trials with handling life with migraines in crisp, bite-sized posts.

A few weeks ago, we issued a survey to our users to find out, among a few other things, why they started using our Migraine Tracker and what benefit they were getting out of it.

If you were thinking of making some New Year’s Resolutions this year, perhaps one thing you could try is to start tracking your migraines. According to our users, here are the top five reasons you might want to start in 2012:

1. Have better discussions with your doctor. Having detailed information about the frequency, duration, and severity of your migraines can help you be better prepared for a meeting with your doctor. This can also help your doctor see whether your current treatments are effective.

2. Identify your triggers. By tracking your migraines and your suspected triggers, you might be able to figure out what to avoid in the future to reduce the frequency of your attacks.

3. Get more control over your health state. The act of tracking your migraines makes you a more active player in understanding in managing your health. What you find out by tracking may help you get a better understanding of your condition.

4. Take fewer medications. Both by identifying your triggers and by providing your doctor with better information about your progress with treatments, you might be able to reduce the amount of medication you require. This will save you money and could be better for your health in the long-run.

5. Get fewer migraines. Again, if you can help you doctor improve the quality of your treatment but also learn what triggers to avoid, you just might be able to reduce the frequency of your migraines.

From all of us at Ubiqi Health, we wish you all a Happy New Year!

Last week, Ubiqi Health hosted a little pre-holiday meetup for Mass Migraineurs, a local support group that we help sponsor and organize. I spoke with one of our members, Hannah, about how to cope with migraines during the often hectic and stressful holiday season. Here are five things Hannah and I discussed:

1. Watch those food & beverage triggers. If your migraines are triggered by certain foods or beverages (especially alcoholic ones), try to avoid or at least moderate intake of them. If you are unsure of ingredients in dishes, don’t be shy to ask your hosts!

2. Stick to your sleep and eating routine. The holidays can wreak havoc on our regular schedules, but if short nights, sleeping in late, or skipped meals are apt to make you susceptible to getting a migraine, try to keep your routine on track.

3. Stay hydrated. The combination of dry winter air, indoor heating, rich food, alcohol and all the running around can make you dehydrated and more susceptible to having a migraine. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water!

4. Steer clear of lights & artificial scents. The flashing holiday decorations and holiday candle scents can get to anyone after a while, much less a migraineur. It’s hard to avoid these in the malls, so you might want to limit your time spent in shopping malls. If you are going to visit friends and family, don’t be afraid to call in advance and request that lights are not set on ‘flashing’ mode or that scented candles or room sprays not be used.

5. And… relax! This might be easier said than done, but try hard to manage expectations (your own as well as that of your family) and forget about family tensions or old grudges. See if you can get back to the basics of the holidays – a time to spend quality time with your loved ones – and stop the madness that has come to define the modern Christmas and New Year period. Make sure to also to plan some down time for yourself amidst all the activities, like having a bath or reading a book.

Here are a few additional resources that we thought you might enjoy:

- Fly With Hope’s December Blog Carnival: Reducing Holiday-Related Migraine Triggers

- Teri Robert’s “Bah humbug!” to Holiday Migraine Triggers

- Audrey Halpern, MD on Holiday Food & Beverage Triggers

Happy Holidays everybody!

Last week, the online magazine MedCrunch featured a guest blog post I wrote about Ubiqi Health’s experiences with self-quantification. Started by two physicians, Franz Wiesbauer and Lukas Zinnagl, MedCrunch discusses issues at the intersection of medicine, technology, and design. I really like the topics the MedCrunch covers and was honored that they asked me to write a guest post for them.

Here’s the link to the post: “Quantified Self and Health – Learnings from a Health 2.0 Start-up”