AIDS Research Progress through Online Gaming
October 10, 2011
Perhaps you’ve already this exciting news:
Over a three-week period, gamers playing Foldit, an online protein-folding game, helped to map out the structure of an enzyme that could be used to help fight HIV and AIDS.
What the gamers were able to accomplish in unlocking the structure of a protein called M-PMV was something that scientists, engineers and automated computer programs haven’t been to pull off in about a decade’s worth of attempts, according to a study published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
This online game, which I’ve referenced several times before, provides a prime example of the open source phenomenon spreading beyond software programming. It’s interesting to consider why scientific discovery might provide a ripe field for such collaboration. I’ve yet to see examples as successful in areas such as government, supply chain planning, or other areas of personal interest. Here’s to hoping that we do see such examples, and in short order.
Collaborative Drug Discovery, Revisited
May 23, 2011
“Failure is free” today, claims Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody. A recent e-mail I received demonstrated how this reality is being put to use in the pharmaceutical industry. Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD), about which I’ve written before, offers cash to pharmaceutical researchers willing to share “compounds they have synthesized but are no longer actively pursuing.” Incidentally, of course, the pharmaceutical industry is having trouble innovating at the same rate as it had been accustomed to.
Here’s most of the text of the e-mail:
Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD) would like to share with our users an opportunity to take advantage of the compounds they have synthesized but are no longer actively pursuing.
By uploading the structures of these compounds at InnoCentive’s Novel Molecule Pavilion your compounds will be considered for purchase by their Seekers for screening in their Seekers’ assays.
Alternatively, submit your compounds to Innocentive using your CDD Vault. Sign up here and we will facilitate passing the data on to InnoCentive.
Initial awards range from $100-1,000 per compound, while coming up as a hit in a Seeker’s assay could be far more valuable. Please forward any questions to Christian Stevenson (cstevenson@innocentive.com).
Thanks, and best of luck in the lab! – Sylvia
Sylvia Ernst, Ph.D.
Sr. Director, Community Growth
Crowd-sourced Radiation Data from Japan
April 6, 2011
Here’s a link to the live map (map below is static).
And here’s an interesting piece (from The Atlantic) on the subject. Key quote:
“It’s one thing to blindly trust the experts. It’s quite another to doublecheck them with a distributed network of 215 Geiger counters — forcing them to earn that trust.”
And this blogger and “Information Visualization enthusiast” wonders if
“grassroots projects like geigercrowd and pachube make progress in closing the data gap [of unreported values].” [brackets mine]
An interesting example of a traditional government function being taken over (in some measure) by the crowd.
EHR’s and Cloud Computing
December 21, 2010
From February, but still worth noting:
ONC [The Deparment of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology] is creating a network of Regional Extension Centers (REC) that will provide regionalized support to medical providers for the selection and implementation of an EHR . . . To track, manage and report on this critical effort, Acumen Solutions will implement a cloud computing CRM and Project Management solution from Salesforce.comthat will be used nationally across all Regional Extension Centers. This solution will provide the REC’s with the ability to manage all interactions with medical providers related to their selection and implementation of an EHR solution. [from the website of vendor Acumen Solutions.]
R&D Collaboration in Pharma
November 2, 2010
A cool site (by Collaborative Drug Discovery, or CDD) that allows researchers to collaborate in drug discovery.
There are three levels of information sharing available:
- “Vault”: provides for private storage of a group’s information
- “Collaborate”: provides for selective sharing of information with selected partners
- “Public”: self-explanatory
I recently spoke with a top theorist in the pharma industry. He suggested that the “black-white continuum between sharing all data and sharing no data” is archaic and that a new model is needed for a world in which innovation has decelerated and in which multiple companies are working on similar therapies. CDD may provide part of the answer to this challenge.
Gvt Rules in EHR Implementation
May 6, 2010
From the EMR and HIPAA Blog, a concise example of how stimulus money for EHR’s can lead to inefficiencies in electronic investment:
. . . the stage 1 meaningful use criteria really focuses on EMR’s having the ability to share patient information, but doesn’t actually require them to share information. In stage 2 and stage 3, my understanding is that the requirements to start sharing this clinical information will be a major part of the criteria.
. . . let’s imagine a clinical office spends more than they should on a certified EHR and show stage 1 meaningful use. No doubt they spent a fair amount of time dealing with the reporting requirements of stage 1 meaningful use. As with any EMR implementation they made a lot of changes in their office and for the most part their [sic] satisfied with getting the EMR stimulus money the first year.
Well, stage 2 meaningful use rolls in and now they’re required to start sending their patient data to some state designated HIE [Health Information Exchange] (or other similar entity). What’s going to happen if their state doesn’t have an HIE where they can send the data? Or what if you’re from a small state like Delaware or Montana (small in people) and your EMR vendor decides that they’re not going to build the features required for you to interact with your state EMR?
The example is not surprising but it’s always a good idea to keep track of how the massive funds that can kick-start an industry will inevitably lead to distortions.
Health Gaming
April 28, 2010
I recently spoke to a pioneer in health gaming, who explained to me that there are four types of health games:
+exergames: think of the Nintendo Wii, where you are actually required to work out in order to play certain games
+condition management: games that help a person learn more about a condition and even, perhaps, that add a dimension of fun to the monotony of treatment (examples: Re-Mission, which I have not played, looks to be an intriguing game for young people with cancer; Bayer recently released DIDGET, which rewards user with points and game access codes, after it verifies successful glucose management through a plug-in monitoring system)
+training games: simulations for health professionals, for instance
+nutrition games: similar to condition management games in terms of its educational and behavioral management aspects
We all know that many people learn through visual and/or interactive methods. That’s one reason we should expect health gaming to be increasingly important in future public health efforts. And, games are almost universally appealing: expect the phenomenon to go global.
Integrating Information Systems across Municipal Departments: A Threat or an Opportunity?
April 27, 2010
Integrating data systems across municipal human services departments (such as those of public health, social work, and education) may conjure up images of Big Brother for some but, according to Dr. John Fantuzzo of the University of Pennsylvania, the spirit that we bring to the task may have the greatest ramifications: “The integration of data systems across city agencies can empower regular people if we take advantage of the opportunity by presenting attractive interfaces with thoughtfully organized information to the general public. If we continue to see data as simple a mechanism for fulfilling reporting requirements, however, I do think that we will have missed a big opportunity.”
Fantuzzo, along with his fellow principal investigator, Dr. Dennis Culhane, and Executive Director, Dr. Phillip Hawkins, is leading an effort to establish a community of experts who can establish standards, ethical and technical, for the establishment of Integrated Data Systems across human services departments; can develop research regarding best practices in the field; and who can then proceed to guide interested parties in improving the coordination of data collection, sharing, and analysis across departments, and between institutions and the general public. The work builds on Culhane and Fantuzzo’s earlier collaboration with Dr. Trevor Hadley (all three of Penn) to develop a Kids Integrated Data Systems (KIDS), in Philadelphia, that Fantuzzo suggests could eventually become part of that city’s governance practices.
Fantuzzo’s ambitions are high: “The demand to make data relevant to, and interactive with, the lives of teachers, parents, doctors, and all community members is an ethical, as well as an economic, one. We shouldn’t just deal with data as if its collection and distribution were a formal ritual designed only to release funds.”
The Electronic Infrastructure: When Information Systems Outpace the Hardware and Humanware They Run On
April 22, 2010
A fascinating article at the Huffington Post relates upsetting stories about the dangers of a too-rapid EMR implementation.
An excerpt:
Altogether, the [Huffington Post] Investigative Fund identified 237 reports of “adverse events” associated with health information technology reported to the FDA over the past two years. Most problems involved computerized medical ordering software or systems that supply the software with vital information, such as recommended doses of medicine or test results. Most of the adverse events recorded in FDA files were blamed on software malfunctions, user error or the system’s lack of user friendliness.
Could the next revolution in global health care be mobile? The United Nations Foundation’s mHealth Alliance (hat tip: Peter Groen) explains that
Today there are approximately 5 billion mobile devices in use around the world — and close to two-thirds of them are in the hands of people living in emerging market economies. Mobile phones have the ability to dramatically change the lives of those who use them, including healthcare providers.
DataDyne, A Washington, D. C.-based nonprofit, open source software company is helping lead the way in this new field (in part with the help of a UN Foundation grant). DataDyne claims that their EpiSurveyor (profiled by the BBC) application is “the most widely-used mHealth software in the world.”
The BBC quotes/summarizes a few words from co-founder Dr. Joel Selanikio:
“Interestingly, there are a lot of people out there apparently who are neither working in health nor working in developing countries who wish to do similar things.”
For example, he said, the Ministry of Agriculture in Canada use the tool to collect data on veterinary disease in rural farms.
“And the World Bank is planning on using EpiSurveyor to do judicial reform surveys in Argentina,” he said.
These more commercially-minded clients provide DataDyne the ability to experiment with payment models previously out of reach to developing world users.
Until now, the project has been kept afloat by grants from the likes of Vodafone and the UN Foundation.
(A thought: Is the pattern of using grant money to develop a nonprofit service/application, then selling the service to commercial enterprises, becoming more common? it seems to me that that approach could constitute a wise business plan (by providing start-up funds), to put aside the social value for a moment.–BE)
