Ebola: 10 Tech Responses To Deadly Disease
Tech companies are addressing the Ebola scare by offering everything from germ-zapping robots to Ebola tracking apps.
Ebola's arrival on Western shores is prompting a growing number of developers to focus on using technology to combat the deadly virus.
After the first confirmed cases of Ebola -- including the first death -- in the United States, 41% of Americans were "very or somewhat worried" about contracting Ebola, compared with 32% two weeks prior, according to the Pew Research Center poll conducted between Oct. 15 and Oct. 20. Most recently, 61% of respondents said they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in hospitals to "diagnose and isolate possible cases of Ebola."
Despite the public's faith, most organizations involved in Ebola cases admit to early mistakes. In that, the nation has been fortunate, healthcare executives said. Other potential pandemics would hit harder, faster -- and obviously the country's existing healthcare system is unable to cope.
"When we looked at trying to manage one single patient in the United States, we missed it. Even when we knew, we sent his contacts on a plane," said Dr. Kenneth Mandl, Harvard Professor in the Boston Children's Hospital Informatics Program, in an interview.
Soon after the virus arrived in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) began an initiative to help EHR software users address Ebola. During an October webinar, the organizations discussed how "to explore ways in which the electronic medical record can serve as a prompt to help our healthcare professionals around the country identify individuals that may be at risk for Ebola," said Dana Meaney Delman, M.D., deputy lead of CDC's Medical Care Task Force (Ebola Response), reported HealthData Management.
Yet focusing solely on tweaking software -- whether EHRs, clinical decision support software, or analytics programs -- specifically to address Ebola is shortsighted, according to several experts who spoke to InformationWeek. The nation faces numerous threats, ranging from illnesses such as flu to man-made biological agents such as anthrax, that could cause pandemics. Hospitals must ensure they have the training, processes, and technological tools to address any emergency, not just Ebola, they stressed.
All of today's approximately 1,000 EHR vendors now must modify their applications to incorporate questions about travel histories, Mandl said -- and that's the wrong approach. "When the makers of Angry Birds wanted to create their popular game, they did not have to fly to Cupertino and have a conversation with Steve Jobs. The way Steve Jobs set up the iPhone, an external device could simply make it happen. They knew how to talk to [their version of the electronic medical record], so to speak," said Mandl. "They did not need to have a specialized solution. There's absolutely no reason why ... we shouldn't have a similar solution [in healthcare]."
Most likely the next health threat will have a different root -- and that means the CDC will once again call in all EHR vendors to revise their apps, require IT departments to upgrade their systems, and retrain users on the new features, he said. Instead, providers and developers should use an API that sits on top of any EHR or clinical data warehouse, empowering organizations to use iPad-like apps to access public health data resources, EHR data, and other information useful to physicians, he said.
Healthcare and government must use Ebola as an opportunity to learn for future health emergencies, Arijit Sengupta, CEO of BeyondCore, told InformationWeek. "Unless we use these moments of crisis to learn from them, we're going to keep repeating the same old stuff. They're taking one or two cases and having a lot of scary discussions on TV. We need to alleviate this. It's a crisis we shouldn't let go to waste. This isn't a pandemic yet. If this was a real pandemic, how should we approach this?"
Some technologies, including robots that destroy viruses and other germs, already are well suited to responding to a disease such as Ebola, and developers have seen an uptick in demand for their proven devices. Other vendors are now retrofitting existing products, while others have created brand new applications for a market that didn't exist only 12 months ago in the US.
Whether providers are really at risk for Ebola cases or want to be prepared for any form of epidemic, a growing number of technology firms are taking on the challenge of helping them prepare. Explore our slideshow for a look at some of them.
Hospital-acquired infections kill almost 300 people a day in the United States, according to the CDC. To help address the problem, robots are being brought in to clean. For instance, Xenex Germ-Zapping Robots use Xenon-based ultraviolet rather than traditional bleach to non-toxically disinfect patient rooms, medical helicopters, operating rooms, equipment, and more. Although Orlando Health has not dealt with Ebola, it brought in the three-foot robots to clean rooms and is considering expanding its automated army, said Dr. Thomas Kelley, chief quality officer at the South Seminole, Fla., organization in an interview.
Since adding the robot less than two years ago, the hospital has seen a 47% reduction in its most serious cases of hospital-acquired infections, he said. Nearby Dr. Phillips Hospital used the Xenex device during a MERS outbreak and credited the robot for curtailing infection, said Kelley. During InformationWeek's visit, the hospital discussed potentially using the device to sanitize its medical helicopter, something that has not yet been finalized as the facility works on funding of the $104,000 device, he said.
(Source: Xenex)
Instead of needing to be retooled to address specific viruses or bacteria, electronic health records should be flexible enough to respond on the fly, Dr. Kenneth Mandl, Harvard Professor in the Boston Children's Hospital Informatics Program, told InformationWeek. That way, clinicians can easily modify the way data is displayed and entered and use the troves of public health information -- currently locked away in siloed databases -- to aid in their efforts, he said.
Funded by the ONC, the Smart (substitutable medical apps and reusable technology) platform allows "iPhone-like" substitution of apps based upon shared components, allowing organizations to apply the platform to any EHR, said Mandl. Services enable healthcare groups to use data capture, storage, retrieval, and analytics, he added. "This is the moment where we either do this over a 10-year period, or we take advantage of a real need to begin to do these things now," said Mandl. "We've proven again and again [that] an EHR can be readily modified to run a SMART API and smart apps, and we've done it on many systems."
(Source: SMART)
Today, under ICD-9, Ebola doesn't have a specific coding designation. Rather, it's categorized under several descriptors for "hemorrhagic fever," wrote Michael Arrigo, managing partner of healthcare at No World Borders, in a company blog.
Once the government mandates ICD-10, clinicians simply will check off "Ebola," or code A98.4, removing any doubt about the diagnosis and questions about treatment or safety protocols.
(Source: HIMSS, Dave Levy)
App developer Ideomed recently adapted its app to help screen and monitor people who might have been exposed to Ebola. The app, called Abriiz, has an interface for tracking patients' temperature, pain, and movement; vital signs recorded in the app are uploaded in real time and clinicians can communicate with patients, including those in quarantine, via the app, according to Ideomed.
The developer is providing the app at no charge to the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies combating the outbreak, it said. The Ebola function requires special registration via Ideomed.
(Source: Ideomed)
Ebola, like terrorist groups or anthrax,is a threat and should be treated accordingly by organizations, people, and technology, according to Modus Operandi. The analytics software developer, which once focused solely on the intelligence community, is expanding into healthcare, bioinformatics, pharmaceutical, and finance, said Eric Little, PhD, vice president and chief scientist, in an interview.
The developer's newest product, Via, uses the same methodologies used in its anti-terrorism analytics tools. For Ebola, for example, organizations want to find the hotspots, how and where it's spreading, who is propagating the virus, and how it's structured, said Little. And after Ebola fades from the headlines, the country will eventually face another viral or bacterial challenge, he noted.
"This is a never-ending battle. The best you can do is try to see the trends, try to predict, keep up on your research and try to integrate your research. To treat a disease like Ebola you need to integrate the perspective and data from people who know virology, structural biology, and physicians who are boots on the ground treating patients," said Little. "Integrating all of that knowledge together is very hard. A genomics person doesn't necessary integrate much or do a lot of talking to basic physicians and vice versa. A lot of physicians are not experts in genomic science. How do you get these communities together? The kinds of software we're looking at building bring those together."
(Source: Modus Operandi)
In light of the Ebola epidemic, Microsoft Research is soliciting cloud computing proposals for projects that are "working towards developing a better understanding of the spread and cure of the Ebola virus and its associated factors." Projects that qualify will receive allocations of Microsoft Azure compute and storage resources.
Proposals should be no longer than three pages; the title must include the word "Ebola"; and entries must be completed via the online submission form.
In the West, most consumers own smartphones, giving them ready access to telemedicine and a growing array of self-diagnostic tools. Whereas multiple cases in Africa go undiagnosed or diagnosed late because patients opt for self-treatment, Western consumers can use their iPhone or Android device to view health information obtained through medical devices from vendors such as iHealth. They can measure their temperatures, blood pressure, and other vital signs using their phones, with data securely fed into providers' EHRs.
(Source: iHealth)
A new round of domain names opened up, just in time for public and private organizations to attach their names, areas of expertise, slogans, and more to .healthcare, .vet, .physio, and a slew of other domain names -- including ebola.com.
Jon Schwartz bought the online address in 2008 and now has the site up for sale at $150,000, he told CNBC. Today, the site gets about 5,000 hits per day and contains other sites' news reports about the disease.
Despite the heart-tugging pictures of those afflicted by Ebola, the disease has not caught on as a charitable cause, the New York Times reported this week. Except, that is, for Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, who gave $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to fight Ebola.
Other contributors include the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and Robert Wood Foundation. Charities that support Ebola initiatives include UNICEF; Doctors Without Borders, and the Red Cross. Both the US Agency for International Development and Charity Navigator have detailed lists of other nonprofits helping Ebola victims, how to donate, and insight into the organizations themselves.
(Source: Doctors Without Borders)
A search of iTunes turns up little for Ebola, but Android users can avail themselves of a bevy of applications addressing the disease. For instance, Ebola Guidelines is designed for medical personnel, while Ebola Live Maps tracks outbreaks. Then, inevitably, there are Ebola games: Ebola Exterminator and Trap Ebola, to name a couple.
(Source: Ebola Live Maps)
A search of iTunes turns up little for Ebola, but Android users can avail themselves of a bevy of applications addressing the disease. For instance, Ebola Guidelines is designed for medical personnel, while Ebola Live Maps tracks outbreaks. Then, inevitably, there are Ebola games: Ebola Exterminator and Trap Ebola, to name a couple.
(Source: Ebola Live Maps)
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