IEEE conference in Toronto: Theme - SmartWorld

If I find the pocket change for registration - I am there in a heartbeat. Two panelists or speakers  of interest to eHealth students are Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, and Dr. Alex Jadad, who is founder for the Centre for Globale eHealth Innovation lab at the University of Toronto. Having Ray Kuzweil, Steve Mann, Marvin Minsky, et al there is just "icing on the cake".

Website for IEEE ISTAS'13: http://veillance.me

Theme - "Smartworld"

Living in a Smart World - People as Sensors

ISTAS'13 presenters  and panellists will address the implications of living in smartworlds - smart grids, smart infrastructure, smart homes, smart cars, smart fridges, and with the advent of body-worn sensors like cameras, smart people.

The environment around us is becoming "smarter". Soon there will be a camera in nearly every streetlight enabling better occupancy sensing, while many appliances and everyday products such as automatic flush toilets, and faucets are starting to use more sophisticated camera-based computer-vision technologies.  Meanwhile, what happens when people increasingly wear these same sensors?  

A smart world where people wear sensors such as cameras, physiological sensors (e.g. monitoring temperature, physiological characteristics), location data loggers, tokens, and other wearable and embeddable systems presents many direct benefits, especially for personal applications. However, these same "Wearable Computing" technologies and applications have the potential to become mechanisms of control by smart infrastructure monitoring those individuals that wear these sensors.

There are great socio-ethical implications that will stem from these technologies and fresh regulatory and legislative approaches are required to deal with this new environment.

This event promises to be the beginning of outcomes related to:

1. Consumer awareness
2. Usability
3. A defined industry cluster of new innovators
4. Regulatory demands for a variety of jurisdictions
5. User-centric engineering development ideas
6. Augmented Reality design
7. Creative computing
8. Mobile learning applications
9. Wearables as an assistive technology

"Smart people" interacting with smart infrastructure means that intelligence is driving decisions. In essence, technology becomes society.

Professor Mann University of Toronto will be speaking in the opening keynote panel with acclaimed Professor of MIT Media Arts and Sciences, Marvin Minsky who wrote the groundbreaking book The Society of Mind  and has helped define the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) among his major contributions.

General Chair of ISTAS13 and formerly a member of the MIT Media Lab under the guidance of Nicholas Negroponte in the 1990s Mann is long considered to be the Father of Wearable Computing and AR in this young field.

Consumer health information discoveries

I have been finding a lot of consumer health information websites, both local and international - a whole bunch of them - and I think it all started when I went to the announcement yesterday for the CISCO/McMaster University Professorship in Integrated Health Biosystems, as well as a Research Chair in Bioinformatics. This doesn't have a consumer health informatics label on it, but should have a Big Data one and be a separate post. Patients come into it when data from clinical trials will finally not go to waste but will be cross-linked with research databases to be put to use for medical research. If personal health records ever catch on, and patients consent to have data (whether de-identified or not - but probably de-identified) used for research, this would also be a mine of information as the original vision for PHR was to include genomic records, the intent being the development and perfection of personalized medicine.

This made me think of Dr. Danny Sands who teaches Medical Informatics at Harvard and is working for CISCO. He had a presentation at a conference (AHIC) where I was also delivering my first student paper presentation. Anyway, I read Danny's bio at CISCO which lead me to a blog he participates in called e-patients.net. It has interesting links to the Society for Participatory Medicine, and the Journal of same.

Impressed with that find, I came across by happenstance the meforyou.org website - a website that can cure you. For some reason this site reminded me about some research and journal articles I read, on how intercessory prayer doesn't work scientifically speaking.  It is a website inspired by Facebook new media but created by U of San Francisco:

UC San Francisco is the only university exclusively focused on human health. For 150 years, we've tackled the world's most vexing health issues, from diabetes and malaria to AIDS and cancer. We are driven by the idea that when the best minds come together, united by a common cause, great breakthroughs can be achieved. Because we believe it is perhaps the greatest single breakthrough that can be achieved, we have committed ourselves thoroughly to the realization of precision medicine. We began this movement knowing that we could not do it alone, and continue assured that we will do it together. Join us.

And then I found this surprising and local "searchless" health information website - hi - consumerhealthinfo.ca (a URL I wished I could have claimed). You can't not appreciate the layout, and user interface (think old people with no time to read extensively.) I think Dr. Mike Evans  ( Dr. Mike Evans curates the best health information found online. ) contributes to this site which lead me to his blog and website, which is simply brilliant, and this viral video!




And finally after this amazing journey just seemed to be beginning, Dr. Evans recommended the ultimate consumer health informatics website NHS.UK  I had recently read on a Yahoo website the UK's National Health Service was in the top ten biggest employers in the world! Well, a lot of them were busy preparing this website, and I relish reading their entire medical encyclopedia someday.

Epidermal Electronic Systems

I heard about this identification system on the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology mailing list. Instead of being subcutaneous like RFID implants, this electronic identification source is skin-like, kind of like the newer water proof bandaids that are transparent and really stick. The author of the article relates this to the potential for healthcare, but not without some caveats:

"There are some emergent ethical issues stemming from these technologies. I can already guess the EES system being potentially used to tag artificial organs and corporate patients in hospitals. Even now few of us would refuse if a hospital insisted on using an epidermal electronic tatoo patch on us for their patient inventory system. Informed consent has just taken on a whole new different set of meaning. However, the advantages far outweigh the fears of social discrimination and eugenic nightmares. Systems such as Epidermal Electronic devices could eventually help in timely drug delivery especially during medical emergencies. "

Yes, it does look like more patients might be happier to consent to wearing a device like this, as opposed to the more invasive RFID chip implant. Who could refuse?

Gesture interfaces in the surgery

I guess I am still fascinated with new technologies in the surgery. This is not an ehealth activity per se - more along the lines of health technology assessment - but I think it began when we were studying an RFID surgery supply inventory replenishment system.  Using Walmart style supply-chain management to handle healthcare inventory (let alone whereabouts of patients) seemed like an interesting idea - and indeed it is.  As for hand gestures to control MRI images, it would appear that gesture interfaces for computer technology is a big attraction at the Las Vegas computer show, where on also on display are eye tracking technology interfaces as well - Could eye-tracking replace your computer mouse.

I wonder where using gestures to control virtual environments really comes from? I am thinking about art installations where gestures and musical forms interact - things of that nature, or theatre.

Smartphone - brain scanner - Emotiv

Emotiv is a revolutionary EEG system (and it's wireless):

 EPOC
A revolutionary personal interface for human computer interaction.The Emotiv EPOC uses sensors to tune into electrical signals produced by the brain to detect user thoughts, feelings, and expressions. To devlope your own applications for the EPOC, license an SDK to obtain our proprietary software toolkit.

Another piece of the Tricorder puzzle? - smartphone brain scanner.

Uploaded on 8 Sep 2011

"Holding your brain in the palm of your hand..."

We demonstrate a fully functional smartphone brain scanner consisting of a low-cost 14-channel EEG headset with a wireless connection to a smartphone (Nokia N900), enabling minimally invasive EEG monitoring in naturalistic settings. The smartphone provides a touch-based interface with real-time brain state decoding and 3D reconstruction.

The Smartphone Brain Scanner is developed by Arkadiusz Stopczynski, Carsten Stahlhut, Michael Kai Petersen, Jakob Eg Larsen, and Lars Kai Hansen, DTU Informatics, Cognitive Systems Section.

More information available at: http://milab.imm.dtu.dk/eeg
The project is open source and available at: http://code.google.com/p/smartphonebrainscanner2/

Tricorder Project

The X Prize Foundation announced a Tricorder competition not long ago, but a McMaster graduate and  researcher has been working on one for quite some time. See Jansen Tricorder Project. I say just add a geiger counter feature and this will fly off the shelves the next time there is a nuclear error. Hat tip to the Hamilton Spectator for publishing this.

The dire need to improve healthcare and health in the U.S. is a problem whose solution has evaded the brightest minds. The Qualcomm Tricorder
X PRIZE is a $10 million competition to stimulate innovation and integration of precision diagnostic technologies, making definitive health assessment available directly to “health consumers.” These technologies on a consumer’s mobile device will be presented in an appealing, engaging way that brings a desire to be incorporated into daily life. Advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, wireless sensing, imaging diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip, and molecular biology will enable better choices in when, where, and how individuals receive care, thus making healthcare more convenient, affordable, and accessible. The winner will be the team that most accurately diagnoses a set of diseases independent of a healthcare professional or facility and that provides the best consumer user experience. Visit the competition website to learn more.

This prize is made possible by a generous grant from the Qualcomm Foundation.

TRICORDER is a trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. Used under license.

Fitbit

Fitbit is quite a useful and potentially revolutionary device. When I was doing research for a computer science and software engineering paper, I was wondering how data from the fitbit could be wirelessly transmitted into personal health records, and stored in the HL7 standard. The problem is, there is a lot of data, so only certain trends need to be recorded. The other problem is how to program an XML or HL7 standard self-journalling area in the personal health record. I know the HL7 standards group is working on PHRs now, because I participated in one of their lunchtime teleconferences. I am not sure how this particular problem was addressed. This is one device the people in the self-tracking movement cannot afford to be without. In fact, they have latched on it, and the systems deployed with them and other similar devices they call "Health Mashups".

Wimbledon in 25 years time?

I play tennis and like to follow ATP tournaments throughout the seasons - clay, grass, hardcourt. Last year, Wimbledon had a fascinating website on what tennis will be like 25 years from now (around the time of the Singularity?) The tennis player, for example:

The major change for players, will be the ability for them to monitor their performance during a game:
Sensors will monitor muscular contractions, measuring fatigue and minimising strain on tiring muscles
Sweat levels will be monitored to gauge hydration levels and, along with heart-rate monitors provide indications of stress
This information will enable them to regulate their intake of water, supplements and of course even bananas to the exact level required to maximise their performance levels