Applications for the #COVID19 Symptom Data Challenge close in three weeks!
Amidst #COVID19, using analytic approaches to maximize available information and data is paramount. Hosted by Margolis Center, sponsored by Facebook Data for Good (@academics), and in partnership with the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, Carnegie Mellon University, and ResolveToSaveLives, the Challenge seeks to analytic approaches that utilize COVID-19 symptom data to develop insights into the trajectory of the novel coronavirus.
Have a solution? Finalists can win up to $50k and the winning analytic approach will be featured on Facebook’s (@academics) Data For Good website!
Much, much more information is on the Challenge Website. Apply by 11:59:59 pm ET on September 29!
Much more about the Challenge Background in this interview or in this slack channel.
Farzad Mostashari is CEO of Aledade, former National Coordinator for Health Information technology, and former Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Indu Subaiya is the President at Catalyst @ Health 2.0
If you are applying to the Challenge or would like to hear more about experts’ responses to COVID-19 and the importance of data during the pandemic, you do not want to miss this conversation!
We will be discussing the following
Shortcomings of the existing tools for COVID-19 surveillance in the US
The case for better situational awareness of COVID activity
Overview of Symptom Data survey methodology
Preliminary analyses relating symptom trends to COVID intensity
Yesterday it was Fortune’s 40 under 40, and a lot of great people, most of whom I thought were much older or at least seem to have been around a while, got listed in the health care section–including Andre Blackman, Ambar Bhattacharyya & Julia Cheek. Lisa Suennen (@venturevalkyrie) and I got into a Twitter exchange about whether we were eligible for the under 40 category or for that matter the category above that. The answer was, amazingly, “no”. Somehow she came out with the line that “we are old”. Knowing her love for 80s pop, I reminded her that this was the inverse of the first line of the Pat Benatar classic “Love is a Battlefield.” Somehow this ended up in us tweeting a new set of lyrics for that song to each other all day. Of course I feel compelled to share them with you. I encourage you to play the video below and sing along!
We are old Wheelchair to wheelchair we sit…. No Promise ring, yes Depends Don’t want my age revealed
Before Long They will all sing our swan song Scans of our hearts show something wrong Both of us slowing.. Don’t want my age revealed
Ads begging me to Ro Then making me pay Why do my knees hurt so bad? It would help me to know Should I stand a different way? My hip hurts too, I might add
On today’s Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica is distracted playing video games, and rants about the unbearable maleness of wearables. Meanwhile Komodo Health raises $50m for more analytics (presumably of patients playing Pong), Picnic Health gets $25m as PHRs will not go away, Hazel Health gets $33 million to take telehealth back to school, and then there’s Amazon Halo — and our stars’ alter egos make an appearance — Matthew Holt
In Partnership with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Resolve to Save Lives, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Maryland, Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is excited to announce the launch of The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge is looking for novel analytic approaches that use COVID-19 Symptom Survey data to enable earlier detection and improved situational awareness of the outbreak by public health and the public.
How the Challenge Works:
In Phase I, innovators submit a white paper (“digital poster”) summarizing the approach, methods, analysis, findings, relevant figures and graphs of their analytic approach using Symptom Survey public data (see challenge submission criteria for more). Judges will evaluate the entries based on Validity, Scientific Rigor, Impact, and User Experience and award five semi-finalists $5,000 each. Semi-finalists will present their analytic approaches to a judging panel and three semi-finalists will be selected to advance to Phase II. The semi-finalists will develop a prototype (simulation or visualization) using their analytic approach and present their prototype at a virtual unveiling event. Judges will select a grand prize winner and the runner up (2nd place). The grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 and the runner up will be awarded $25,000.The winning analytic design will be featured on the Facebook Data For Good website and the winning team will have the opportunity to participate in a discussion forum with representatives from public health agencies.
Phase I applications for the challenge are due Tuesday, September 29th, 2020 11:59:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge HERE.
Challenge participants will leverage aggregated data from the COVID-19 symptom surveys conducted by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, in partnership with Facebook Data for Good. Approaches can integrate publicly available anonymized datasets to validate and extend predictive utility of symptom data and should assess the impact of the integration of symptom data on identifying inflection points in state, local, or regional COVID outbreaks as well guiding individual and policy decision-making.
These are the largest and most detailed surveys ever conducted during a public health emergency, with over 25M responses recorded to date, across 200+ countries and territories and 55+ languages. Challenge partners look forward to seeing participant’s proposed approaches leveraging this data, as well as welcome feedback on the data’s usefulness in modeling efforts.
Indu Subaiya, co-founder of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (“Catalyst”) met with Farzad Mostashari, Challenge Chair, to discuss the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. Indu and Farzad walked through the movement around open data as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenge goals, partners, evaluation criteria, and prizes.
The THCB Book Club is a discussion with leading health care authors, which will be released on the third Wednesday of every month. And this is the first one!
We kicked off with the new book from Hemant Teneja (VC at General Catalyst who has been writing many big checks lately) and Stephen Klasko (CEO at Jefferson Health System and one of the most unusual hospital system bosses in America). Their book is called UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance which is a how-to for creating a platform for a revolutionary future for health care. You can go buy the book here (eVersion only $6!) It’s an easy read (about 130 pages on your iPad “Books” app).
UnHealthcare is about a new concept called Health assurance– which Tenaja says is “an emerging category of consumer-centric, data-driven healthcare services that are designed to bend the cost curve of care and help us stay well.”
Sitting in on the interview because we can’t get rid of him was Glen Tullman from Livongo (Just kidding, Glen!). He weighed in on how this connects with his new idea of Consumer Directed Virtual Care and the Teladoc-Livongo merger.
This was a great discussion. We had them explain the concept, and pushed them pretty hard on how realistic it was! And you can see it in the video below (and the podcast version will be in our iTunes & Spotify channels very soon)
In September the THCB BookClub will feature Jane Metcalfe with her 2020 book NEO.LIFE
Six competitor CEOs and one ex-CMO discuss the biggest-ever digital health merger
By JESS DAMASSA & MATTHEW HOLT
It was the news that stunned the world of health tech. And us! So we had seven of Teladoc and Livongo’s biggest competitors weigh-in on what the merger means for telehealth, digital health, the future of health care delivery–and their businesses! You’ll hear from the CEOs of Omada, Ginger, One Drop, Vida, Lark & Cloudbreak, with some spicy commentary from Lyle Berkowitz who was, until recently, CMO at MD Live. From reaction to the merger to speculation about how this will impact the future of digital health funding, fasten your seat belts for some impactful and fun infotainment about all the implications of the deal.
We are launching a new THCB program! The THCB Book Club (TM) is going to be a discussion with leading health care authors, which will be released on the third Wednesday of every month.
We are kicking off with the new book from Hemant Teneja (VC at General Catalyst who has been writing many big checks lately) and Stephen Klasko (CEO at Jefferson Health System and one of the most unusual hospital system bosses in America). Their book is called UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance which is a how-to for creating a platform for a revolutionary future for healthcare, Taneja said. “Health assurance is an emerging category of consumer-centric, data-driven healthcare services that are designed to bend the cost curve of care and help us stay well.” Sitting in on the interview because we can’t get rid of him we will also have Glen Tullman from Livongo (Just kidding, Glen!). He will weigh in on how this connects with his new idea of Consumer Directed Virtual Care. Matthew may say something about the Continuous Clinic too, and Jessica will keep score of all the crises, Tsunamis, the many ways the health care is broken, and how many zingers Glen & Matthew get in on each other!
We want YOU to read the book in advance and email us questions or comments for us to ask the author(s) before the show. (We record a day or two in advance so please email us or put question in the comments here or on Twitter by the 17th).
This episode of the THCB Gang included regulars Grace Cordavano (@GraceCordovano) , Deven McGraw (@HealthPrivacy), Ian Morrison (@seccurve), and special guest patient entrepreneur Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3). We talked about patient experiences, the state of play in health care business, and about new technologies and more. And after tomorrow it gets preserved as a podcast on Itunes & Spotify Enjoy! – Matthew Holt
FHIR DevDays, run by Rien Wertheim’s company Firely in conjuncion with HL7, is the premier FHIR event in the world, with editions in the US and Europe. The three pillars for DevDays are Learn, Code and Share. The event runs from 15 to 18 June, 1 to 5 PM EST. This year’s edition will be 100% virtual. Tracks include the ONC and CMS Final Rules and COVID-19 on FHIR. I will be opening and moderating that last track–Matthew Holt.
The Patient Innovator Competition at DevDays US 2020
Have you ever wondered what would happen if patients had access to their data from hospitals, labs and other sources? Some still doubt the value of data at the fingertips of patients. So, we went the extra mile to see how this would look in practice and the results were impressive.
To give some context, every year we run DevDays, which is a semi-annual conference for health data programmers working with FHIR. FHIR is the open and standardized API for healthcare. What APIs have done for other industries, FHIR is doing for healthcare. That is, enabling an app economy: apps for doctors, researchers, payers, even apps for the government and, above all, apps for patients.
A lot of these of these apps are built by EMR vendors, even more by startups, and some by patients. Last year we launched the Patient Innovator Track at DevDays to give patients a voice. The track gives the stage to tech-savvy patients who are taking control of their health using data about their disease and treatment. The track wants to prove a point: access to health data can improve our lives. It also shows the unimagined things people can do with data when their health is at stake.
Four finalists pitched for the Patient Innovator Award. In the end it was John Keyes that blew everyone away. John is a blood disease patient who created a simple app to track his blood count and ongoing test results. The app is called BloodNumbers and it consolidates test data from multiple health care providers, making it easy to view and share results if you want to.
We are looking for more tech-savvy patients, developers and IT experts like John, to apply for this year’s Patient Innovator Track. All you need to do is pitch an app, device or other technology that allows you to use your own health data to improve your wellbeing. The finalists get a free ticket to DevDays US 2020 Virtual Edition where they can learn all about FHIR and connect with the community. The winner gets to walk away with $2,500. On the jury we have Dave deBronkart (“ePatient Dave”) and Grahame Grieve, the founder of FHIR. Check out what Dave wrote about the Patient Innovator Track here.
Yes. We’re looking for writers & cross-posts. Send us them
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Op-eds. Crossposts. Columns. Great ideas for improving the health care system. Pitches for healthcare-focused startups and business.Write-ups of original research. Reviews of new health care products and startups. Data driven analysis of health care trends. Policy proposals. E-mail us a copy of your piece in the body of your email or as a Google Doc.
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