The Spark: Three Stories Healthcare Couldn't Have Told Ten Years Ago
You are more than a single lab result. Your doctor wants to talk to you, rather than typing. You have the right to your health data.
We've known these things for decades. The harder question is what to do about it, and whether the tools we're building are closing the gap or widening it.
As Chief Public Health Informatics Officer at Emory Healthcare, Elizabeth Sprouse sits at the intersection of clinical care, public health, and the technology connecting them. She's spent her career on one deceptively simple question: how do you build systems that reach the people who need them most?
In this edition of The Spark, Elizabeth traces how dramatically that work has changed. Through a handful of stories spanning the last two decades, she'll take us from what healthcare tech could and couldn't achieve then, to what's possible now, to why that distance matters for every patient in the room.
The AI conversation is better than you think. The data rights conversation is more urgent than most people realize. And the evolution of the patient visit tells both stories at once.
No clinical background required. Bring a neighbor.
The format:
6:00 PM: Doors open (grab a drink, order some food)
6:40 PM: Welcome
6:45 PM: Elizabeth Sprouse's talk
7:15 PM: Q&A
7:30 PM: Open networking
8:00 PM: Wrap
Who this is for: Anyone who believes that how we organize data, resources, and relationships in a city determines who gets healthy and who doesn't. Public health researchers and students, digital health operators, clinicians, policymakers, urban planners, and people from entirely different industries who keep ending up in healthcare conversations — you belong in this room.
The Spark is Bonne Fire ATL's speaker series built around one idea: healthcare is everywhere. Co-presented with Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.