Canadian Association of Health Informatics Board of Directors

http://www.coachorg.com/en/membersandbenefits/Candidates_for_Board.asp I am a candidate for the Board of Directors for COACH. Vote for me! Yah!

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

Online Learning Courses

I first signed up for a Standford University course on artificial intelligence. Took one of the courses and found it was actually a bit difficulty. Not sure what the other 200,000 people who took it, and completed it ( I didn't), thought. Next, I signed up to take a course from udacity (Standford again) on progamming the robotic car, but that class time conflicted with something called my job. These courses are interesting, but today I found out that my university library, in the multi-media centre, has a subscription and dedicated computer with an IP link to lynda.com where there are all kinds of software tutorials. As I am still trying to learn enough Python to run an application at that place called my job, this might be very useful. Programming a robotic car might be more fun, but for now, I am going let other people do that. In fact though, the prerequiste for programming the robotic car is knowledge of Python!

You should either already know Python, or have enough experience with another language to be confident you can pick up what you need on your own. Fortunately, Python was built to be easy to learn, read, and use. If you already know another programming language, you'll be coding in Python in less than an hour. Additionally, knowledge of probability and linear algebra will be helpful.

Python Review
Python for Programmers Introduction to Programs Data Types and Variables Python Lists For Loops in Python While Loops in Python Writing a Simple Factorial Program Fun with Strings
Probability
Basic Probability Probability (Part 6) [Conditional Probability] Probability (Part 7) [Bayes' Rule] Probability (Part 8) [More Bayes' Rule] Introduction to Random Variables Probability Density Functions Expected Value: E(X)
Linear Algebra
Introduction to Matrices Matrix Multiplication (Part 1) Matrix Multiplication (Part 2) Inverse Matrix (Part 1) Inverting Matrices (Part 2) Inverting Matrices (Part 3) Matrices to Solve a System of Equations Singular Matrices Introduction to Vectors Vector Dot Product and Vector Length Defining the Angle Between Vectors Cross Product Introduction Matrix Vector Products Linear Transformations as Matrix Vector Products Linear Transformation Examples: Scaling and Reflections Linear Transformation Examples: Rotations in R2 Introduction to Projections Exploring the Solution Set of Ax = b Transpose of a Matrix 3x3 Determinant Introduction to Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors

Integration Engines - the Cloverleaf on the Information Highway

I was looking at eHealth career postings on the COACH website and found one at Telus for an Integration Health Business Consultant. What caught my attention was one of the Responsibilities: "Develop HL7 interfaces to integrate disparate health care applications using a variety of commercial integration engines such as: Oracle’s Java CAPS; e*Gate (SRE); Datagate; OpenESB; SOA Suite; Quovadx Cloverleaf; webMethods; IBM WebSphere; and Microsoft BizTalk." I had heard of Biztalk and knew it was a web service, probably using Service Oriented Architecture, but the rest of them were all new to me. This is a veritable flotilla of integration engines for disparate systems. It was only minutes later when I found myself searching for information about Cloverleaf ("The Swiss Army Knife for Data Conversions"), that I landed on the MDI Solutions website. Here I found a grouping of HL7 Integration Engines like I have never seen before. Their webpage on HL7 Integration Expertise includes many of these same integration engines.

Qualcomm Tri-corder x-prize

After the Watson supercomputer TV show Jeopardy contest, the next exponential technology to watch out for is the Qualcomm Tri-corder X-PRIZE competition.It had it's birth as TV entertainment as well - in the Star Trek series. Smartphone apps can do a lot things, but just pointing one at a patient and getting diagnostics, repair tissue, etc. is something only the physician science fictional character "Bones" could do. I would first double check to see if there isn't already one on the Qizmodo, the Gadget Guide website. When I was writing papers for my ehealth degree, I didn't want to reference Qizmodo - too much "grey literature" - but new devices with medical or health informatics applications frequently answered the question. The first question was whether or not it was FDA approved.

Knowing is Better (with RFID?)

The Canada Health Infoway TV commercial (also appears on my blog as a Google ad!) is really what health consumers are looking for. Implementing it is another story. It is the ehealth mystery of the patient who arrives in the ER in a coma with absolutely no identification. A solution advocated by John Halamka (looke for the study in the New England Journal of Medicine "Straight from the Shoulder") is RFID implants. RFID readers in the ER would scan the patient for the chip. Minimal identification information on the chip would lead to the database with the patient's electronic medical record, i.e., penicillin allergy, diabetic, medications to avoid etc. I am not 100% what the Infoway solution is, but I am not sure it is an RFID one. The thing about RFID is that developments in technology might lead to less invasive ways to create identification tags. For example, take the nanosensor tatto that tracks glucose and sodium via an iphone. In the "Knowing is Better" video the ER doctor asks "Is he on any meds", and a nurse responds "Neighbour says the wife is out of town". On the rerun, when knowing is better, the EMR is already on the screen when he arrives, thus answering the question about medications. One way for the EMR to be on the screen in the ER would be something like an RFID embedded health card, just like Ontario has "enhanced driver's license" for quicker Canada-US border crossing. Otherwise, just scanning a bar code on the health card could do the same thing. What if no wallet?

Program or be Programmed

I can essentially agree with the argument that we all need to know about programming, and at a bare minimum get over any phobias about it. I am sure that many of the 1% have other people do their programming for them, probably by others in the 1%, I mean, after all, they are programmed to be the 1%. The rest of us are the "bungled and the botched". Python interests me because I am working on a Plone site now and I want to better understand the Zope database. It just doesn't make as much sense as PHP and mySQL right now. Plone can be quite the robust CMS (Content Management System). I even know a tethered Personal Health Record system that deploys it. I once tried to program Zope to connect resident forms to an MS Access database. It would have required a third party integration bridge, but it was possible. Just learning how to import, and then display, CSV data, seems to be a problem I am having at present. If anyone knows an easy way to do that, please let me know.