AMIA 2009 – global health informatics November 16, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in AMIA, USA, conference.Tags: AMIA, health informatics, San Francisco
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“Experiences and challenges of global health informatics” – a panel on global ehealth initiatives, presenting the experiences of practitioners from various parts of the world. The first presenter, Neil Advani, explored the distinction between global and international in terms of health. He says that ‘international health’ is based in tropical medicine, as a distinct speciality, and based in a foreign aid paradigm, while global health is based in global health threats that potentially affect all countries, and a paradigm of elf-sustainable development. International health sees innovation only in ‘developed nations’, while global health sees innovation required in, and occurring in the ‘global south’. International health is based in adapting high-tech solutions to resource constrained areas, while global health sees innovation and exchange occurring in both directions between developed and developing areas.
The first presenter is Muzna Mirza (on behalf of Scott McNab), on Saudi Arabian National Guard Electronic Disease Surveillance System. The system vision is around an integrated surveillance and information system designed for appropriate actions to prevent and control illness.
The second presentation is from Andrew Kanter, on “The Millennium Global Village Network”, a network of 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. MVP (Millennium Villages Project) is a partnership between UNDP, national governments, and Earth Institue at Columbia University; it is integrated project, not just focusing on health, but on other aspects of everyday life that influence health and disease. The project covers about 500,000 people, at a cost of around $120 per person per year. The project is based around primary care clinic registers The project covers about 500,000 people, at a cost of around $120 per person per year. The project is based around primary care clinic registers, but wants to move to comparable and timely data, electronically stored. The project uses OpenMRS as a core to collect structured data from different facilities; information is aggregated, used locally, sent from district information systems to meet the needs of regional and national health ministry levels. The project wants to also find what works and what doesn’t work in different areas, and common themes.
The system needs to be population based, not just based in health clinics. A system built on Open Rosa uses a cellphone based data collection system to then send data to Open MRS and generate reports based in local communities. Challenges include human capacity, reliable electricity (often solar power based), clinician engagement, reliable connectivity (via 3G networks) and government policies. Conclusions include that open robust systems are an important part of these developments.
T Kass-Hout talked about disease surveillance through novel tools in InSTEDD, and the final speaker was Charles Safran, talking about diabetes management in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. About 30% of Emirati seem to develop diabetes later in life (versus a smaller percentage of around 7% in USA). Charles discussed population management of diabetes, and doing so from a distance. He discussed some of the cultural issues around people admitting to having diabetes, and aspects of care. Charles discussed some research into how IT available today can provide better healthcare in Dubai; the results found that people already made everyday use of IT (especially cellphones), but often are not trained in utilising them to their full potential. They found that ‘culture trumps everything’ – Charles suggests a need for ‘cultural informatics’ and a supporting research framework for comparative cultural explorations.
AMIA 2009 – opening session November 16, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in AMIA, conference, health informatics.Tags: AMIA, conference, health informatics, San Francisco
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There was no reliable wifi for the opening session, so this blog post was written during the session and uploaded afterwards. Ted Shortliffe, AMIA CEO and President gave the opening and welcoming remarks. Attendance is on target for this year, with 1,900 so far, with expectation of over 2,000 due to on-site registrations to come. Lucila Ohn–Machado, SPC programme chair followed Ted; she reported that there are 360 posters, some panels and late-breaking sessions, and a number of other innovations. The SPC includes representatives from training programmes and journal editors or representatives. There is also a journal-eligible programme, with 7 journals (including JAMIA, IJMI). Lucila gave an overview of a number of highlights to be presented during the next few days.
Following this, there was an overview of the student paper competition from David Krusch; of 80 submissions, 52 were selected as short-listed finalists, then narrowed down to 8, from which the final three winners were selected. Winners will receive cheques and certificates – third place winner, from Carnegie-Mellon is Christopher Harley; second place from Columbia University is Chintan Patel; first place winner of student paper competition is John D Duke, from Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute.
David Bates, Chair of AMIA Board, was the next speaker, giving an overview of other award winners presented at the AMIA Leadership Dinner on Saturday evening. Joyce Mitchell, president of ACMI, then presented the Morris Collen Award (AMIA’s highest award, for lifetime achievement), given to Betsy Humphries, Deputy Director of the US National Library of Medicine, together with new inductees into the College (founded in 1984 with over 300 Fellows). The award was presented by Morris (currently 96 years old and living in the San Francisco bay area).
The opening keynote presentation was given by Mark D. Smith, President and CEO of California HealthCare Foundation. Mark says he is not in informatics, and is not a technologist, but is passionate about the use of IT in healthcare. He began by talking about ‘hope’ – he says the “stars are aligned” for delivering on the promises around using technology to change healthcare. Why can you put a piece of plastic in a hole in the wall anywhere in the world and get money from your bank account – but go to the hospital you were born in and they don’t know the most basic things about you? – a paraphrase of a question Mark asked. He gave a couple of examples of kiosk-based information and symptom checking.
Mark then moved on to the “hype”; starting with Gartner Hype Cycle – suggests we are at peak of inflated expectations in use of technology/IT in healthcare. He says there has been hype, and we have been having the same debates, for nearly 40 years, with predications/hype of change for that long. Avoiding the ‘road to hell’ – he suggests need to pay attention to policy, pay attention to key technology issues, and address the forces of inertia. A lot of scientific studies costing many millions of dollars have produced ‘nothing but tenure’ – but have had no effect on healthcare delivery systems – this has got to change, he says. The only thing we do more or less same as 20 years ago is healthcare – basic structures have changes, despite a few new gadgets etc – but technology has changed many other areas of everyday life. He gave the example of opentable.com as a way of booking a reservation for dinner; are integral to restaurant reservation systems. By implication, he asks – why cannot we do the same in healthcare? “The restaurant owner did not have to come to a conference to get 10×10 certified to be able to use the system to get more customers into his restaurant”.
Critical technology areas – embrace affordability (we know what we can afford, what can we get for it?) – need a priority in bringing down the costs of healthcare while maintaining quality etc. Need to focus on the consumer – technology needs to be simple and elegant if people are going to use them. We also need to “avoid analogue limbo” – we have fast cheap machines linked by slow, dumb humans; there is no end-to-end digital movement and manipulation of data. So pressing task is to eliminate the trapping of data in analogue limbo.
His final admonition – aimed at students, and the younger generation – this is the chance to fundamentally transform the system – so “don’t screw it up”.
AMIA2009 – Nursing Informatics Special Event November 15, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in AMIA, USA, conference, health informatics, nursing informatics.Tags: AMIA, health informatics, nursing, San Francisco
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Sunday morning, early, and AMIA2009 activities are already in full swing. Peter is attending the the Nursing Informatics Working Group (NIWG) Special Event. The first part of the event was an overview by Charlotte Weaver, talking about current activities and goals etc for the group. A number of international participants are the event, including Polun Chang from Taiwan and Kaija Saranto from Finland. About 60 people are attending the event at present.
The second part of the event is Diane Skiba, introducing work on the TIGER initiative, covering the development of the project so far and future plans. Next, Sue Newbold introduced the nursing informatics history project; she introduced the origins of the project, and the pioneering work of people such as Harriet Weley and Virginia Saba. Sue says the project aims to reaearch and document the history, including the stories of the pioneers through video interviews. The history project webpages are at https://www.amia.org/niwg-history-page The common themes from interviews etc have been extracted (http://coursedocs.umaryland.edu/Projects/amia/interviews.htm)
The third session was lead by Kaija Saranto and Patti Brennan, who introduced the work and outputs of the NI2009 post-conference. The book has been produced rapidly though a collaborative effort. The books is available as “Personal Health Info management: tools and strategies for citizens’ engagement” at http://www.uku.fi/vaitokset/2009/isbn978-951-27-1321-9.pdf (Book Info: Kaija Saranto, PF Brennan, Anne Casey, eds “Personal Health Info management: tools and strategies for citizens’ engagement” (University of Kuopio) ISBN 978-951-27-1321-9.
AMIA 2009, San Francisco November 15, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in USA, conference, education, health informatics.Tags: AMIA, conference, education, health informatics
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Peter is at the AMIA 2009 conference in San Francisco (http://symposium2009.amia.org/). I will be trying to blog some of the action from here – but may end up with most of my reportage being on Twitter – look for #amia2009sf
As of Saturday, 5:30 pm – Registration is now open – after a minor hiccough – and there are lots of people queuing to get their badges etc. A nice sunset over San Francisco at the moment, as viewed from the 35th floor of the hotel. I have been here for two days – done some of the usual tourist bits – some photos are uploaded at http://www.facebook.com/peterjmurray and I’ll try to add more in due course.
Any other tweeters or bloggers, let me know and I’ll add you a link/mention here. I know Kevin Clauson is on Twitter (@kevinclauson), as is Chris Paton (@DrChrisPaton). AMIA is now on twitter at http://twitter.com/AMIAinformatix
Medicine 2.0′09 Toronto September 18, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in conference.Tags: Canada, conference, Medicine 2.0, Toronto, Web 2.0
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Peter is at Medicine 2.0′09 in Toronto; a great conference and as interesting and dynamic as last year’s inaugural event. He will be blogging mostly on the official conference blog at http://medicine20congress.blogspot.com/ – there are several other bloggers, most of them students of Gunther Eysenbach.
The best way to follow the event ‘live’ is through Twitter – search for #med2
Healthcamp Toronto September 16, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in conference, health informatics, unconference.Tags: eHealth
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Peter is at his first healthcamp/barcamp, here in Toronto. A lot of interesting, enthusiastic people here to look at a wide variety of issues. The formal website for the event, which will have summaries, conversations, links, etc is at http://www.socialtext.net/hctoronto/index.cgi?healthcamptoronto
A lot of the major conversation will be via Twitter – search using #hcTO
I am here to learn what these events are all about, how they work, etc., and what benefits there can be out of them.
UPDATE: 17 Sept. Healthcamp Toronto was an interesting experience; @carlosrizo and all his colleagues at the Innovation Cell did a great job of organising and running it – and of trying to capture all the conversations, which is a difficult task. It wil be interesting to see the various analyses that come out of it. Having been involved in running quite a few similarly semi-structured workshops etc. in the past, I appreciate the challenges of trying to get away from talking heads and monologues and death by powerpoint, etc.
The idea of having a ‘wall’ where people could post what they wanted to discuss in sessions worked well; although requires you to think quickly and try to grasp what the session ‘leader’ is looking to explore. A lot of the session notes, together with video clips and photos are on the website; I recommend you to go and explore that. A few ideas/issues I picked up from the sessions I went to:
- how do we bring people without technical skills into using online tools? – how do we overcome some of digital divides?
- will social networking tools become part of people’s normal social landscape in the future, and so these become ‘non-issues’ in the future?
- there were many differing views of the value of content on some online discussion areas – some suggest low value (too much ‘noise’), some report studies that give high value/accurate information (more accurate information often in areas for more specific/specialised diseases).
- do we need filtering of information, or does the good material rise and stay, and the dross fall away (via crowdsourcing etc)?
- what do we mean by Web 3.0 and what will it mean for health? (search Twitter for comments here).
The discussion 'grid'
Welcome to healthcamp - the rules of healthcamp ....
A Healthcamp Wordle from live analysis of tweets
MIE2009 is over – onwards to Toronto September 3, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in conference.Tags: Canada, conference, health informatics, Medicine 2.0, Toronto, Web 2.0
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MIE2009 is now finished, and people will be returning home from Sarajevo today, if they have not already done so.
Peter will be blogging from the Medicine 2.0′09 event in Toronto, Canada on 17-18 September (http://www.medicine20congress.com). There will also be an official blog for the event this year – http://medicine20congress.blogspot.com/
In addition, he hopes to be able to cover the Healthcamp Toronto (http://healthcamp.ca/) – I have not been to a Healthcamp yet, so I am looking forward to learning.
MIE2009 – final day September 2, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in EFMI, Europe, education.Tags: conference, Europe, health informatics, MIE2009, Sarajevo
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Today is the last day of MIE2009. I won’t be reporting much, as my flight home is at lunchtime. Last night was the gala dinner, held in a restored beerhall near Sarajevo town centre. A good time was had by all; Izet sang and ended up losing his voice, he told me this morning. I will upload some photos later, if any have come out OK.
The final keynote speaker is Silvia Miksch from Danube University Krems, Austria, talking on “Computer-Based Medical Guidelines and Protocols: Current Trends”. She is a computer scientist, and is addressing the issues from this perspective. She outlined the problem areas from a user perspective, of information overload, transfer of information and knowledge, and assessment of the quality of care. She notes that there are many different definitions of clinical guidelines and protocols, with varying views in different countries. The guidelines tend to be free text, flowcharts or algorithms – they are used with the aim of improving quality of care and consistency of care, as well as cutting down on costs.
My final bit of MIE2009 is Luis Fernandez-Luque’s presentation on “Challenges and Opportunities of Using Recommender Systems for Personalized Health Education” – related to the work he is doing for his PhD. Tailoring health information is an important aspect of medical informatics. Health education has to do with aptitudes and knowledge relating to improving health – can tailor information to the needs of the individual. Traditionally, tailored health information has been in related to specific diseases or health issues – have been 3 parts, ie gathering information on the users, knowledge of the health information available, and then giving the tailored information to the user, often via rule-based systems. Much web-based work in this area, is still based on the traditional methods. One problem now is the plethora of resources available – and it can be difficult to find good quality content.
Now moving into area of information retrieval tools – search engines or recommender systems. Three types of recommender systems – collaborative (based on gathering knowledge for similar users), content (based additionally on items as well as user information) and hybrid. Some examples of health-related systems – HealthyHarlem (community of patients who tag resources); Cancer Sites Recommender (University of Toronto); MyHealthEducator. Such systems do not rely on experts (although some input from them can help), but derive information from the users. Many recommender systems rely just on popularity of items/resources, and may be skewed due to interests of heavy users. Are no ethical guidelines governing development and use of recommender systems, and the sorts of profiling they are doing on users. Recommender systems have potential for use in health – cannot rely just of popularity as a guide, and quality control is needed. Audience question – what is the role of ‘reputation’?
MIE2009 – public health informatics session September 1, 2009
Posted by peterjmurray in EFMI, Europe, conference.Tags: conference, Europe, MIE2009, public health, Sarajevo
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The first paper of the ‘public health informatics’ session is “The Use of Open Source and Web2.0 in Developing an Integrated EHR and E-Learning System for the Greek Smoking Cessation Network”. The aim of developing the system was to give health professionals access to online information to support patient education, and there are 3 sub-systems – data collection systems, e-learning environment (Moodle based), and a discussion forum, developed with phpBB. The e-learning environment and forum are for use by both patients and health professionals.
The second paper is on “Comparative Study between Expert and Non-Expert Biomedical Writings: Their Morphology and Semantics”. The presentation described the research methods used, and results obtained, in a morpho-semantic analysis, using NLP tools to examine a corpus of documents, and explore the discourses within the documents, with a focus on cardiology-related materials.
The third paper (a short student paper) is titled “Designing an E-Health Application in Collaboration with Obesity Patients”. The aim of developing the ehealth application is to foster self-management. A qualitative research study used workshops and goup discussions to get end-user input to the design of the application, and those involved will also be involved in evaluation before implementation of the application. Patient participants in the process had had either weight loss surgery or lifestyle modification treatment. The patients proposed the development of ‘buddy system’ and online self-help groups, drawing on the experiences of people who had had similar issues.
The next paper (a short student paper) is “Improving Cardiology Workflow in a Hospital Using a Mobile Software Solution”.
The final paper is titled “Interoperability Services in the MPOWER Ambient Assisted Living Platform”. The MPOWER project is an EU funded project that completed in July 2009. Interoperability was an important part of the project due to the many proprietary solutions that exist in the field of ambient assisted living, and the project was aimed at developing middleware platforms.
