Liz Salmi

Liz Salmi is a former punk rock drummer turned cancer patient, who now works for a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital on a research project called OpenNotes--a movement that encourages doctors and other healthcare professionals to share the notes they write with the patients they are caring for.

After being diagnosed with a life-limiting condition at age 29, Liz immediately put her digital communications skills to use by blogging, chronicling her daily symptoms, and seeing how much trouble she could get into with her online medical information. Today, she is passionate about empowering regular people to become more engaged in their own health care and improve their experience as patients.

Liz is a Stanford Medicine X e-Patient Scholar and a 2016 TEDMED Frontline Scholar. She speaks regularly on how healthcare professionals and patients are connecting through digital tools and joining as partners in research.

In addition to her work with OpenNotes, Liz leads stakeholder engagement efforts for a palliative/neuro-oncology research network established by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and serves on the Board of Directors for National Brain Tumor Society. Her interests include clinical informatics, citizen science and human-centered design.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]