Interesting. This blog post about the “Era of Open Energy Information” mentions the use of APIs, allowing developers to build their own tools that pulls in energy data. Makes perfect sense, but hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before. Still not quite sure I understand how the data is extracted from the smart grid receiver, but I’m assuming someone has figured that problem out. As we’ve seen proven on the web over and over again, once you open up the data nerds will find something fun to do with it. Of course there are some dangers of privacy, etc., but that’s the case with any new technology …
Posts Tagged ‘technology’
Smart Grid APIs
Thursday, October 8th, 2009QALY: Quality Adjusted Life Score
Friday, June 12th, 2009So a big part of our conversation with David Lee (one of GE’s health economists) last week was talk about QALYs:
QALY: Quality adjusted life year, a year of life adjusted for its quality or its value. A year in perfect health is considered equal to 1.0 QALY. The value of a year in ill health would be discounted. For example, a year bedridden might have a value equal to 0.5 QALY.
Much of David’s work is in this realm, as he explained:
We try and evaluate benefits and costs. The way we measure that is a QALY, quality adjusted life year, we try to figure out what the QALY for certain technologies are. Is the gain in QALYs to the gain in costs worth it. The UK has something like £30,000 per QALY. If the technology can deliver at less than that they’ll pay for it, if it’s more than that they won’t. … What it’s telling technology developers is that if you’ve got a high cost with low medical benefit product your chances of getting into market are lower. If you’re a cancer patient that stands to benefit from an additional three months of life that will cost the NHS $70k is it worth it or not?
This is especially interesting to me because it’s puts a value on human life. In some cases it’s going to be decided that the treatment isn’t worth the cost and while that’s a tough decision to make, it’s an understandable one (at least from an outsider rational standpoint … imagine it’s a different story if you’re the one who wants the treatment). Basically there has to be some way to measure this stuff otherwise it would all spiral out of control. Anyway, lots to think about.
I’ll continue digging into our chat with David over the coming days, going to try to break it down into bite-sized chunks.
Great Bones!
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
So we are in DC for a big GE healthcare event, and got to see the Achilles Express, which analyzes your bone strength and provides information that doctors use to help check for osteoporosis (among other things? ). Its pretty cool, its almost an industrial appliance in the sense that it can be used at a Health Fair to quickly analyze hundreds or thousands of people, and then they come in for follow-up care if something is spotted.
Pretty cool, and I hadn’t heard of a Health Fair, which is basically where a bunch of people can come get some health tests, seems like half public service, half marketing outreach for hospitals. This is interesting territory to explore.
One question/thought I had is that most people are sometimes nervous to use devices like this because you either get baseline feedback (no problem) or negative feedback (this is how bad your bones are) but there’s no positive feedback. Like if you have really superb bone strength, you will get a higher number, but I don’t think this thing lights up like a pinball machine and makes you feel awesome about your great bones. Might be interesting to think about how to balance the good/bad feedback so you can have a really positive experience and thus motivate folks to get themselves checked out even earlier? Maybe something with the device, and maybe just the communications around what your motivation is in the first place to stick your foot in one of these.
Advances in Healthcare
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009There’s a nice Fast Company article this month that goes through four innovations in the world of health. Here’s the description of a world that includes all of them:
Think what happens when you put these things together. You can see your doctor immediately without wasting time in a waiting room. A robust database helps your physician make more accurate diagnoses. Advances in robotics cut your recovery time after surgery — and could even lead to operations assisted by remote experts. This is the vision of the medical system of tomorrow. And it’s emerging today.
Holographics x New York Times
Monday, April 27th, 2009One of our stops at the Global Research Center, holographic data storage, got a little writeup in the New York Times yesterday as well as a nice roundup over at the Global Research Center Blog.
Here’s Brian Lawrence explaining “threshold recording behavior”:
You may be asking, “what is threshold recording behavior?” Well, it is a fancy way of saying that we are looking to develop a material that records data in a way that is similar to how other optical disc technologies (CD, DVD, or BD) record data. That is, when the optical drive is reading a disc, the laser power is turned down to relatively low levels. To record data the laser power inside the drive will be turned up to high power. This high power enables the laser to create changes in the recording layer of the disc. For example, a laser power of 1 mW might be used to read a CD or DVD, which is less than most laser pointers generate, but a laser power of 10 to 50 mW might be used to record. So to put it simply, threshold behavior refers to the low-power readout and high-power recording process.
Birth in the Age of Majority
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009I had never heard this term before we went to the hospital - Age of Majority. Basically, it means you are a legal adult – you can drink, smoke, vote, join the army, buy stocks, get married. Probably you can’t rent a car yet. In most of the USA the age is 18. As it relates to the medical profession, the key age it seems is 28. It is 28 because that is how long most hospitals keep records of a birth. Because if there was a criminal error during your birth and it caused problems later in life, you could sue when you are an adult if it is within a statute of limitations
To quote a government study about health related data retention:
AHIMA Standards and State Law Data: As a matter of professional practice, AHIMA has established the following recommended retention standards: 10 years after the most recent encounter (adult health records); age of majority plus statute of limitations (minor health records); 10 years after infant reaches age of majority (fetal heart monitor records); 10 years (disease, operative, and physician indexes); five years (diagnostic images such as x-ray films); and permanently (master patient index; registers of births, deaths, and surgical procedures).
I found this out when we were researching GE’s infant care products, and talking about Electronic Medical Records. Apparently, one of the compelling reasons for a hospital to switch to EMR is because they can gather more data, and it is easier to store for longer periods of time, so they can defend against lawsuits.
Now, this is not the only reason, practicing more accurate medicine is certainly important, but this seems to be a critical reason why hospitals will pony up the money to make the switch, because it could save them 10x the money in the long term. Digital insurance.
It seemed super messed up to me, until I found out that hospitals get sued enough that apparently some hospitals will not even give birth anymore, you have to go somewhere else. !! ! Now I don’t know enough to presume that this is because people are more litigious or doctors are doing a bad job, or how widespread this really is, but it sure put the situation into a different light for me.
I am constantly surprised that the medical industry is so backwards-seeming with regards to technology. Writing everything down on paper, storing it in a box for 10 years. Sending slides through the mail instead of scanning & emailing. But then I guess a hospital is a business, and if you are forced to think about the legal ramifications on a scale of nearly three decades for data retention/implementation, I can understand being slow to move on it.
So EMR solves some of the problem a hospital might have – basically covering their butt so they can stay in the baby business, and I am sure that having a more accurate process for record keeping saves TONS of mistakes due to human error, handwriting, etc. But again, thinking that choosing a hospital to give birth in is a unique chance to make a great first impression as a brand (both for GE and for the hospital) it seems like the pitch for EMR is kind of negative – do it because the industry is behind, or because there are errors, or because you might get sued.
Is there a positive way – can your baby’s medical records becoma keepsake, like how you can get those books printed from iPhoto , maybe a little timeline with ultrasounds and baby pictures that tie in to checkups? Or maybe this ties into your baby’s upcoming preventative health regime, depending on the results of the birth and tests, you get a booklet thats the start of your new child’s future health plans.
More MEMS (Circuit Breakers)
Monday, April 20th, 2009MEMS are micro electromechanical systems. As I understand it, that pretty much means they’re tiny chips with moving parts.
The example the team at GE gave us to help us understand how and why they matter is circuit breakers. Think of the box you have at home that’s full of a bunch of black switches which trip if there’s some sort of surge. Those things take milliseconds to flip open and protect, during which time the current can rise to thousands of amps, which could short something. With a MEMS breaker, however, that time is limited to microseconds, thanks in large part to the fact that the switch just has less distance to travel (it’s the difference between turning a light switch the size of the one on your wall and one that would fit on a microchip).
Here’s the MEMS team explaining:
(If you are looking to learn more about circuit breakers, head on over to How Stuff Works, though I think I’ve done a fair job describing it.)
Where this technology becomes especially interesting is in large industrial settings where you might be dealing with millions of dollars of equipment. Frying something at that size can have a big impact on business. Craziness.
What are MEMS? (Micro Electromechanical Systems)
Monday, April 20th, 2009The team at GE explains:
Keeping Babies Warm
Friday, April 17th, 2009When we went down to visit the Maternal Infant Care division we spent a lot of time talking about premature babies. These are the little guys you see in incubators at the hospital. (Before I continue let me say that I know almost nothing about babies. I don’t have one and spend very little time with them.)
Okay … So the thing that I found most interesting from the trip is why incubators exist (and specifically why GE has added some of the features they have to the products they make). So basically a premature baby is tiny, it was meant to spend some more time with it’s mother before it was ready to face the world on its own. Something happened and it wasn’t able to do that, so now all of a sudden it finds itself out of the womb, but it hasn’t yet developed to the point where it’s really ready to fend for itself.
So, part of the reason you put a baby like this in an incubator is to regulate it’s temperature for it. Basically, if the baby had to keep itself at 98.6 on its own it would waste a ton of energy. Because the incubator is doing the job the baby can focus those calories on other stuff, like growing. The same is true with moving a baby around: Every time you jostle a baby and they need to readjust themselves they waste those same valuable calories. 
Which is why GE added the Baby SusanTM to their Giraffe Omnibed (this is no joke, it’s really called the “baby susan” … see photo above). It does exactly what it sounds like, allowing nurses to get at babies without having to move them every time. Nice to see kitchen innovations making it into the hospital. In case you still want to learn more, here’s some of our GE hosts explaining this stuff:
What is Holographic Data Storage?
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009Following up on the very first post on this site, here’s Brian Lawrence explaining holographic data storage: