Nudges in Health Care Symposium

The Nudges in Health Care Symposium is an annual event organized by the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit since 2018. The goals of this event are to: 

  • Assemble individuals from health organizations interested in applying behavioral science or forming nudge units
  • Share insights on lessons learned from implementing nudges in health care        
  • Network and build collaborations across the health care sector

The latest symposium was held on September 26–27, 2024, in Philadelphia, bringing together nearly 200 people from two dozen organizations.

We invite you to explore this page and linked content to learn more about our past symposia. You can also join our mailing list to receive symposium updates.

 

Past Symposia

The first two symposia, in 2018 and 2019, were hosted on Penn's campus and brought to get health system leaders. There was no symposium in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, the symposium took place virtually, and we broadened the audience to include health plans and other organizations working on using nudges to improve health care.

The following year, in lieu of a symposium, we held a webinar focused on how to scale interventions with a presentation by economist Dr. John List and a panel discussion with past and present Nudge Unit directors.

We resumed hosting in-person symposia at Penn in September 2023.

2024 Symposium

Our 2024 program, which took place September 26 and 27, featured keynotes by Leora Horwitz, director of the Center for ​Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone Health, and Amy Bucher, chief behavioral officer and co-director of the Behavioral ​Reinforcement Learning Lab at Lirio. The two-day event included "Stories From the Field" sessions with short research presentations, a fireside chat with Roy Rosin and Thomas Lee, a poster session, and workshops.

See the 2024 symposium agenda. Read coverage of this event on the Penn LDI news blog or click the video player below to watch the recordings.

 

2023 Symposium

In September 2023, the nudge symposium brought together more than 200 people from 50 organizations nationwide to share insights about creating behaviorally enabled organizations. The program featured keynotes by Elizabeth Linos, faculty director of The People Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Kevin Volpp, director of the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, and explored topics such as nudging with well-being in mind and applications of artificial intelligence.

See the 2023 symposium agenda. Read coverage of this event on the Penn LDI news blog or click the video player below to watch the recordings.

 

2022 Webinar

Experts in behavioral economics and implementation science came together virtually on October 14, 2022, to share their perspectives on scaling in an event hosted by the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. 

Headlining the program was John A. List, an economist and the author of The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale. After a keynote by List, past Nudge Unit leaders Mitesh Patel, Rinad Beidas, and Srinath Adusumalli joined present Nudge director Kit Delgado for a panel discussion.

Read coverage of this event on the CHTI blog or click the video player below to watch the recordings.

 

2021 Symposium

The third Nudges in Health Care Symposium was held virtually on May 20, 2021. More than 400 people representing over 200 organizations from across the world tuned in to hear from featured speakers, including David Halpern of the Behavioural Insights Team, Susan Lucas Collins of Twilio, and Mohan Balachandran of Way to Health.

Click the video player below to watch the recordings. View the 2021 symposium agenda and abstracts.

 

2019 Symposium

At the 2019 Nudges in Health Care Symposium, we assembled health systems interested in implementing nudges or forming nudge units to share insights, network, and build collaborations. 

Among the speakers at the two-day event were Lori Melichar, Senior Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Stacey Chang, Executive Director of the Design Institute for Health at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Read coverage of this event on the Penn LDI news blog or click the video player below to watch the recordings.

 

2018 Symposium

To disseminate lessons learned and better understand ways to address common barriers, we hosted the inaugural Nudge Units in Health Care Symposium in September 2018.

Executives and researchers from 22 health systems across the United States and Canada attended the event. The symposium began with a series of talks, including an address from Mitesh Patel, director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, a question-and-answer session with Penn Medicine executive leadership, and a keynote by Cass Sunstein, co-author of the book Nudge. Attendees then engaged in a series of design sessions focused on implementing nudges in health care.

Read coverage of this event on the Penn LDI news blog or click the video player below to watch the recordings.