Weather Health ExplorerLinking Environmental Data for

Personal Health Delivery

3-October-2012Presenter: Bernadette Hyland

Email. bhyland@3roundstones.comTwitter: @BernHyland

This presentation: http://slideshare.net/3roundstones

Today I’d like to introduce you to an exciting Web app emerging as a result of government open data efforts and industry valuing trusted authoritative content from the Web. Gov’t agencies, like NOAA, HHS, NLM/NIH and US EPA, are authoritative sources for important data sets. We, as taxpayers, have collectively paid millions for gov’t to collect, curate and disseminate this information that often is NOT very accessible and rarely published in format that is re-usable by others.

Our customers

US Environmental Protection Agency

Government Printing Office

Health & Human Services

World Wide Web Consortium

Our customers.... I co-chair the W3C Government Linked Data Working Group and support Open Government Data initiatives focusing on data exchange standards and best practices used by the HCLS communities. I’m also co-founder & CEO of 3 Round Stones, a commercial open source data platform company.

3

Google Generation ...

Empowered

“Let patients help!”

- Dave deBronkart

Today we live in the Google Generation. We can research anything. 10% of American’s use online tools and apps like iTriage to evaluate symptoms, learn about possible causes, find medical facilities or record prescriptions.

The catalyst ...

• The Web, of course ...

• Open data from trusted authoritative sources

• Open Source software

• Global data exchange standards

Over the last decade, medical practitioners have observed how the Web has impacted how patients interact with them; participate in online communities like ACOR.org, the Association of Cancer Online Resources. ACOR is a collection of online cancer communities who provide timely and accurate information to those affected by cancer and related disorders. When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online -- and found the medical treatment that saved his life. He calls on all patients to talk with one another, know their own health data, and make health care better one e-Patient at a time. His mantra is “Let Patients Help”.

Big data ecosystem includes complex data

That of course has to be balanced. There is a ton of information on the Web ... not all of it is good, accurate or should be trusted. We, patients, providers, healthcare IT vendors and government, all find ourselves in a big data ecosystem, seeking information from trusted sources. The Web of Data provides fertile soil for economic growth to transform how we do personalized health delivery, including integrating mobile computing devices. As Dr. Fernando Martinez from Beacon Partners suggested yesterday, there are “double-edged aspects” of mHealth. There are security aspects related to managing non-corporate owned devices that need to be addressed, however, there is no turning back the fact that patients are becoming more empowered and healthcare professionals must keep up.

Improving health delivery ...

• Harness larger & more complex datasets to evaluate the potential for health impacts

• More accurately predict factors that contribute to illness or diagnose disease

We are already seeing signs of the things to come. Healthcare analytics and BI solutions providers harnessing larger and more complex data sets are looking to incorporate Open Data too.Health delivery companies like Sentara and Partners Healthcare are producing mobile apps for the public good. They’re gaining expertise with the new distributed data landscape and how patients are becoming central to their care.

EMRData

InternalPortal Data

Linked DataCloud

Open Government

Data

Social Media

Clinical Condition Specific

PhysiciansServicesLocations

DBpediaPub Med

NLMUS EPA

CDCCensus

FacebookTwitter

ClinicalOntology

BusinessOntology

Sentara Healthcare, a VA-based non-profit health delivery company with 400K insured lives, are interested in the intersection of Open Government Data + Linked Data cloud + internal content.

Conceptual Model

   Pa$ents  with  chronic  pulmonary  disease  that  are  educated  and  no$fied  of  adverse  environmental,  weather,  and  geographic    condi$ons  are  .  .  .

be#er  able  to  respond  and  proac/vely  manage  their  condi/on.

Working with Sentara Healthcare, we developed a conceptual model. Nearly 130 million Americans, that is nearly one in two, suffer from at least one chronic medical condition such as COPD, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and high blood pressure.   Chronic conditions account for 70% utilization of medical services and costs in the US. Our initial conceptual model started earlier this year focusing on Asthma and COPD.

Our initial focus for a Web and mobile app is on patients with chronic pulmonary disease and educating them on adverse effects of the environment.

Methodology1. Defined target population and clinical data from EMR

2. Identified sources of open government data

3. Leveraged trusted, authoritative Open Government

Data (environmental, weather, drugs)

4. Alert patient of possible hazardous conditions and

recommend appropriate actions

Describe methodology.

We combine open content from US EPA, NOAA, NLM/NIH, PubMed, Medline to support patient education.

3RS created a Web application linking 4 government data sets daily & user entered info on asthma and COPD. The project is called “Weather Health Explorer.”

• Decrease costly  Emergency  Department  visits

• Reduce  hospital  re-­‐admissions  a>er  treatment

• Improve self-­‐care  and  medica$on  compliance

• Awareness  of  triggers  and  disease  management

Value Proposition

Weather Health Explorer

NIH NIH

User

NOAA EPA AQS

EPA UV

11

Because studies show that people turn to authoritative sources on the Web for information on their health conditions, as often as 50% of the time healthcare is researched via the Web. Here is a screen grab of the actual Web application.Weather Health Explorer uses open government data from NIH for drug warnings & imprint data; from NOAA for precipitation data, max/min temperature, humidity and thunderstorms; EPA Air Quality.Weather Health Explorer serves to warn patients of drug interactions or advising them on dosage. We’ve incorporated pill identification using imprint data. This application was built using Callimachus, an open source data platform based on international data exchange standards.

Iterative Approach

• POC May 2012 (60 day sprint) EPA Air Quality & PubMed

• Feedback - Demonstrated at Health Datapalooza, Washington DC (June 2012), patients, clinicians

• Phase I - Dec 2012 - Available for general public

• Phase II - 2013 - Combine with EMR (anonymized)

Multiple speakers yesterday including Rob Havasy, Larry Stuntz, and Dr. Martinez described the importance of doing a phased approach, soliciting feedback, pivoting rapidly. We adhere to the “Lean Startup model” promoted by Eric Ries, the entrepreneur, technology advisor and best-selling author of the popular blog “Startup Lesson Learned” & Lean Startup, a book that is revolutionizing software development.

This was our POC that we showed at the Healthcare Datapalooza in DC in June. We took feedback and iterated the Web application. Sentara continues to get feedback and is looking for corporate support to continue development and make this available on both their corporate website and as a mobile application.

Something very powerful about this story is that Sentara, a non-profit healthcare company believes apps like this are a “national good” and should be made available for people who want to be more responsible & accountable for managing chronic conditions.

EBS - 50 GBM2.2XLarge

S3 - 50 GB

Additional attachedstorage

Periodic snapshots(backup)

Monitoring Service

Appl

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vel

mon

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TP/H

TTPS

Email/SMS

notifications

Adm

inistr

ation

Off-site backups

SNS

System-level

monitoring

Emai

l/SM

Sno

tifica

tions

Callimachus(application)

Public users

Securely hosted on the cloud

• Created using an Open Source linked data management system, Callimachus • Developers can combine data sources & quickly build a web UI for Web

or mobile devices• Hosted on the cloud• Web scale

Web scale• Leverages user supplied information & federal

government data

• Created using an Open Source linked data management system, Callimachus

• Developers can combine data sources & quickly build a web UI for Web or mobile devices

• Hosted on the cloud

• Web scale

Report card for Weather Health Explorer

Linking Environmental Data for Personal Health Delivery

✓ Federal government data - EPA, NOAA, NIH - 25/25

✓ Creativity/innovation/originality - 24/25

✓ Patient empowerment / engagement - 20/20

✓ Usefulness to the public - 20/20

✓ Scalability - 10/10

Total = 99 points

Weather Health Explorer meets all the criteria set forth for the New England Health Datapalooza Competition. Since it is early and I’m going first, I thought I’d help with the scoring :-)

• Authorities publishing data in machine & human readable formats for improved access & re-use

• Weather, human health and scientific research ...

• Health Datapalooza 2013 will have a Linked Data track

• Apps Challenges, hack-a-thons, funding ($1M-$200M)

What is around the corner ...

What’s next? We are already seeing signs of the things to come.Data on the Web is going mainstreamThere have been many well-publicized triple challenges, hack-a-thons, apps challenges -- they are popping up everywhere.

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