It is enormously satisfying when a good idea captures the imagination and takes off and that’s precisely what happened with the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) over the past 6 months. Citations are the way that researchers communicate how their work builds on and relates to the work of others and they can be used to trace how a discovery spreads and is used by researchers in different disciplines and countries. Creating a truly comprehensive map of scholarship, however, relies on having a curated machine-readable database of citation information, where the provenance of every citation is clear and reusable. With the launch of I4OC that map, and the potential for anyone to use it to explore the scholarly landscape, comes much closer...
One of the most interesting twists resulting from Hurricane Maria striking Puerto Rico was Elon Musk's offer that Tesla could help Puerto Rico solve its energy crisis, with a long-term, 21st century fix. After all, its electrical grid was devastated, with almost all the power wiped out. It didn't help that even prior to this disaster its system was antiquated and badly in need of repairs. It is telling that we don't have similar offers to rebuild the Puerto Rico's health care system, which is similarly devastated. Or, for that matter, our system, which is its own kind of disaster. Mr. Musk was asked on Twitter if Tesla could help Puerto Rico using solar and battery power, and he responded in the affirmative, saying it had done so on smaller islands but faced no scalablity issues...
Two new reports on interoperability, and a related Call to Action were released in fall 2017 with potential impact on public health. The reports focus on the perceived successes and barriers to health information exchange and interoperability. We draw out the relevance of these reports to public health as well as some of our own observations on these issues from a past working paper. The Call to Action released by the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) calls on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to demonstrate leadership and promote progress in a number of key areas.
Pioneering doctors are showing the way to a much higher performing system as I highlighted in Doctors' Declaration of Independence. They understand that every example of great societal movements to our toughest challenges have come from the bottom up. The fundamental structure of politics is to cement the status quo. If the status quo was performing well that would be OK, but it's clearly failing miserably. In fact, Chapter 1 of my new book is "America Has Gone to War for Less" (link to free copy of the book below) referring to the collateral damage from this wildly underperforming status quo. Fortunately, doctors are collaborating to change this such as the Direct Primary Care conference starting today in Orlando.
Mission control on earth receives an urgent communication from Mars that an astronaut has fractured his shinbone. Using a handheld scanning device, the crew takes images of his damaged tibia and transmits them to earth. Orthopedic surgeons then use a 3D printer to create an exact replica of the astronaut’s leg from medical imaging files obtained before the voyage. Surgeons on earth use a robot to stabilize the bone with a metal plate on the 3D replica. The data is transmitted back to Mars, where surgical instruments, a personalized plate and screws are 3D printed. Finally, a surgical robot operates on the injured astronaut...
In developed countries, the ability to access and edit Wikipedia easily is taken for granted, but in many African countries, where access to reliable electricity and broadband are limited, that's not the case. I recently interviewed Florence Devouard, who is working on several open source projects to help close gaps caused by poor access to online information. She is co-leader of the WikiFundi project, as well as other projects related to Wikipedia and Africa, including Wiki Loves Women, a women's information initiative, and Wiki Loves Africa, a media contest that invites the public to contribute photographs, videos, and audio to Wikipedia. All projects are part of the WikiAfrica movement...
Two seemingly unrelated national policy debates are afoot, and we can’t adequately address one unless we address the other. Health care reform has been the hottest topic. What to do about America’s aging infrastructure has been less animated but may be more pressing. Yet even as cracks in America’s health system and infrastructure expand, political divides between parties and within parties have stalled efforts to develop policies and implement solutions. Problematically, debates over health care reform and infrastructure projects remain separate...
During large disasters, like hurricanes, wildfires and terrorist attacks, people want emergency responders to arrive quickly and help people deal with the crisis. In order to do their best, police, medics, firefighters and those who manage them need lots of information: Who is located where, needing what help? And what equipment and which rescuers are available to intervene? With all of the technology we have, it might seem that gathering and sharing lots of information would be pretty simple. But communicating through a disaster is much more challenging than it appears...