Over the last two years, the digital health space has been on fire and I’m excited to lead a panel at Disrupt SF on the subject.

With the healthcare market bogged down by high costs, old technology and slow-moving giants, the space is rife with opportunity and health startups have begun to emerge by the dozen. Among the many opportunities in the healthcare market, the one that appears to have the biggest potential impact on the way we interact with health is in the way that technology is changing the way doctors (and consumers) approach diagnosis.

It’s not difficult to see that the current system is broken, especially when 30 percent of all health care spending in the U.S. (or more than $750B per year) is wasted. The up-side is that doctors have begun integrating technology into their daily routines: Today, 43 percent of physicians use mobile health technology for clinical purposes. Consumers are on board, too, as 19 percent of smartphone users have downloaded health apps and 59 percent of adults in the U.S. look for health information online.

The opportunity is huge. People want tools and technology that help them manage their own healthcare — whether to access medical information or refill prescriptions — in part to help them alleviate the pains brought on by the cost of healthcare and doctors visits in the U.S. Today, technology is finally beginning to allow users to take control of their healthcare and access the kind of futuristic tools that were once relegated to the world of science fiction.

From remote diagnosis, home monitoring and wearable health sensors to electronic health records, software and hardware are coming together to improve access to healthcare, reduce costs and improve efficiency.

With all the changes rippling through healthcare in the U.S., we’ve decided to build a panel at Disrupt SF around the future of digital health — particularly how software, hardware and mobile technologies are merging to change the way we diagnose and treat disease and more. The discussion will feature Rock Health co-founder Halle Tecco, Cellscope co-founder Erik Douglas, Neurotrack co-founder Elli Kaplan, and the Gladstone Institute’s Dr. Katherine Pollard.

Few have a better perspective on the world of digital health startups than Tecco, who is the co-founder and CEO of Rock Health, the largest startup accelerator in the country that caters exclusively to startups playing at the intersection of health and technology. Previously, she worked in business and corporate finance roles at Apple and Intel, and founded the non-profit YogaBear. Tecco also has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Douglas, too, has a unique perspective on the intersection of healthcare and mobile technology. The former research scientist, bioengineering PhD and hardware hacker turned entrepreneur, currently serves as the CEO (and co-founder) of Cellscope, a startup building technology that enables at-home diagnosis, using smartphone cameras connected to the Web.

As the co-founder of Neurotrack, a startup that’s building a platform to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease years before symptoms occur, Elli Kaplan also brings deep experience with health technology and next-gen diagnostic tools.

Meanwhile, Dr. Pollard will share her experience at the cutting edge of scientific research, as founder and faculty supervisor of the Gladstone Bioinformatics Core and an associate professor at the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco. Pollard’s lab is known for developing statistical and computational methods that enable the analysis and study of massive genomic datasets. With her research focusing on genome evolution and the relationship between DNA sequences and biomedical traits, Pollard’s work has important implications for how science identifies and treats a wide range of diseases, from AIDS to atherosclerosis.

Together, Tecco, Douglas, Kaplan and Pollard will talk about how they are building their own businesses, what they’ve learned and how they plan to leverage the changes in technology to build a healthier world.

The conference starts September 7th and runs until the 11th at our favorite location, the San Francisco Design Concourse. Stay tuned for more speaker announcements and a few surprises to be announced soon.

General-admission tickets and exhibitor packages are currently available. Buy tickets here.

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