On Thursday of last week I attended a day-long meeting at the MIT Media Lab.
Dr. John Moore of the New Media Medicine team invited EMC, as a corporate sponsor, to participate in a "medical hack-a-thon", with undergrads, grads, sponsors, and other interested parties.
The medical hack-a-thon is essentially a two-week sprint to solve the following problem:
As the population ages and the burden of chronic disease grows, there is a pressing need for technology to improve the delivery of healthcare and to help individuals to take greater control of their health and wellness.
Several months ago I had taken a tour of the New Media Medicine lab and become familiarized with the CollaboRhythm project. This project focuses on improving the doctor-patient relationship using technological frameworks.
The hack-a-thon started with prototype proposals. The proposals varied on such topics as chronic disease management, disease prevention, healthy habit formation, and psychological/social wellness. In some cases the proposal was actually sponsored by (or driven by) a corporation.
My goal as an attendee was to listen and provide mentorship to each proposal. One week later I returned to the Media Lab to hear about the progress of each prototype. The final session (next week) will include videos and demos summarizing the entire body of work.
Here are some of the things I've observed so far:
- Sensor data is a big part of many of the proposals. One proposal uses accelerometers to measure tremors and freezing in Parkinson's patients. Biometric sensor data from infant sleeping patterns is being proposed as a way to gather information about sudden infant death syndrome.
- Cell phones are also a big part of many proposals. Several projects are writing cell-phone apps that receive sensor data and somehow interact with doctors and/or patients. One proposal involved a microphone embedded in a necklace that could cause a cell phone to ask: "You haven't swallowed recently. Are you drinking enough water?"
- Data Visualization, a growing area of research at the Media Lab, is an important part of nearly every prototype.
- Open source medical software is an important aspect of several proposals, and OpenID was mentioned as one potential method for representing a patient.The Indivo Framework is being used (and extended).
- Prototypes targeting rural areas and third world countries are being explored. Often times during these conversations the term "low bandwidth" is used, and one creative proposal discussed low-bandwidth synchronous treatment exchanges using pictures as opposed to video feeds.
- Kinect and Wii technologies are being studied as methods for doing rehab and/or facilitating automated patient/doctor exhanges.
The small group discussions after each presentation are the best part of the experience. During this time the ideas take on new forms and directions, and new use cases are suggested. The more interesting ideas created during the discussion time freed back to the presenters to help them shape their plans for the progression of the idea.
My own wheels have been turning during the interactions, particularly when it comes to capturing the provenance of medical workflows. I see a lot of opportunities.
This is the 2nd time around for the Hack-a-thon. A number of tools are available to the researchers, including open-source medical software, Android phones and tablets with working example applications, and health sensors (weight scale, blood pressure cuff, blood glucose monitor, etc.).
I'm looking forward to seeing the final prototype presentations on the 26th of January.
Steve
Twitter: @SteveTodd
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