Search Results for: "big data"
Keeneland Q&A: Joe Selby
Joe Selby, head of PCORI
A constant theme of this year’s Keeneland Conference is the emergence of the discipline of public health systems and services research (PHSSR) from strict research and evaluation to results that are beginning to be used by public health departments and agencies. So who better a dinner speaker than Joe Selby, MD, MPH, head of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), authorized by Congress under the Affordable Care Act. PCORI’s role is to conduct research and provide information about the best available evidence to help patients and health care providers make more informed decisions. The Institute's goals include:
- Substantially increase the quantity, quality, and timeliness of useful, trustworthy information available to support health decisions.
- Speed the implementation of patient-centered knowledge into practice.
- Influence clinical and health care research funded by others to be more patient-centered.
NewPublicHealth spoke with Dr. Selby about PCORI’s work so far and the critical goal of disseminating scientific research to improve health.
NewPublicHealth: Tell us about your talk at the Keeneland Conference.
Dr. Selby: I’ll start by talking about the historical trends that led to PCORI’s formation. I think that these trends are bringing what we do, which is called comparative clinical effectiveness research, together with quality improvement and with public health systems and services research. There is a convergence of interests between what the conference attendees do as public health practitioners and public health researchers and systems-based researchers and what the quality improvement world is doing and what we’re trying to do at PCORI. There are many common bonds and a new appreciation for that.
It has suddenly dawned on everyone that you’ve got to put your patients or, in the case of public health, your communities, at the center of the research activity. And I know that in the public health world, they are involving communities and patients within communities and clients and consumers in their planning and intervention activities. That is one of the bonds that ties us together and that leads to enhanced productivity whether we’re doing clinical research like PCORI does, whether we’re doing quality improvement, or whether we’re doing public health.
What's Your Idea for the Future of Health and Health Care?
Inspired by the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, all week we've been talking with national health leaders and highlighting promising strategies to improve our nation's health and health care.
>>View the full package of thought leader interviews, video conversations with leaders from across sectors, and more at RWJF.org/futureofhealth.
Now we want to hear from you on what’s needed—and what works—to achieve better health. Share your stories from the field, ideas or even the critical questions we need to be asking to achieve a healthier future.
To join the conversation, add your thoughts in the comments section below.
To get your ideas flowing around the future of health and health care, read more on:
Reversing the Trend of Childhood Obesity. Read a Q&A with Jessica Donze Black of the Kids’ Safe & Healthful Foods Project on a new report looking at snacks sold in secondary schools. Also find updates on a new Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity study on parents’ attitudes about food marketing to children, and more.
Reducing Violence in Communities. Read a Q&A with Debbie Lee from Start Strong on preventing teen dating violence and a discussion with Sheila Regan of Cure Violence on partnering with hospitals for violence prevention.
Preparing and Responding to Disasters. Read discussions spurred by Hurricane Sandy, including about the role of public health as well as legal issues around orders to evacuate in an emergency.
Harnessing the Potential of Big Data. Read updates on how Big Data can change the landscape of public health, including a conversation with Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT, as well as Q&As and video interviews with other innovators and thought leaders.
Improving Health Equity. Read stories from the field and interviews with leaders on efforts to ensure everyone—regardless of race, ethnicity, income or zip code—has access to the resources they need to be healthy, including a diverse and representative health public health workforce.
Working Across Sectors to Improve Health. Read stories from the field and big ideas for bridging across sectors from thought leaders, including conversations with The California Endowment President Robert Ross and new APHA president Adewale Troutman.
Don't forget to share what YOU think will make for a healthier future in the comments below!
Public Health and Big Data: What are the Implications for the Field?
"Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.” - Peter Sondergaard
That was a quote from panel at APHA 2012 on how new data mapping tools can help support health departments and vulnerable population. Taking a look at everything from local health department budget cuts and their effect on vulnerable populations to how “big data” has implications for public health trends, the panel made an effective argument for the fact that mining data sets has increasingly important ramifications for the public health field and practitioners.
“We’re gonna get technical,” warned Matthew Dollacker of CSC, during his presentation. “But we can come away with a real appreciation for a fundamental shift that is taking place through what big data technology can do.”
>>Read related thought leader conversations on harnessing the power of Big Data:
- Read a conversation with Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Read a Q&A with Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor of WIRED Magazine.
- Watch a video interview with Reed Tuckson, Executive Vice President of UnitedHealth Group.
Dollacker pointed out that today, we’re in a new era of data. Users posts about 2,200 tweets per second to Twitter, and conduct 1.6 billion searches today. Originally, decoding the human genomte took 10 years to process – today, it can be achieved in one week.
Using Data Well: NewPublicHealth Q&A with John Lumpkin
John Lumpkin, senior vice president and director of the Health Care Group at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
At the Health Data Initiative III: The Health Datapalooza this summer, which looked at the role health data plays in transforming health and health care, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced the three winners of an app challenge calling for developers to create applications that would allow consumers to easily access and make use of comparative information about the quality of care provided in various regions of the country. The data behind the apps came from Aligning Forces for Quality, the Foundation’s initiative to improve the quality of health care in 16 targeted communities.
John Lumpkin, MD, MPH, senior vice president and director of the Health Care Group at RWJF, presented the awards to the top three winners of the challenge. Recently, NewPublicHealth spoke with Dr. Lumpkin about the explosion of health care data, and how to find the strongest data and use it well.
NewPublicHealth: Quantities of health data are increasing at a speedy clip. What kind of challenge does that pose in order to make sense of the numbers?
Dr. Lumpkin: In a single day there are over 300 million photos that are being posted on Facebook, and 3.2 billion likes and comments. We have 115,000 people participating in web sites such as Patients Like Me and about 9 million tweets each day. So we have all this data, but how do we access it in ways that make it meaningful? Kerr White, MD, the chairman for the U.S. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics once said: “With the advent of new technology, data can be collected in any format, aggregated by the computer and arrayed in any desired output…untouched by human thought.” And so our challenge is to present it in a way that we actually have it touched by human thought.
Some good examples of this would include the County Health Rankings and the Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative where we have coalitions of consumers, purchasers and providers who, through public reporting of quality and price information and consumer engagement, we encourage to adopt quality improvement methods and use the data in ways that move that process forward.
NPH: Does everyone mean the same thing when they talk about “evidence-based” data?
