Tune-in to the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Webinar on 9/8 & More News...
Tune-in to the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Webinar 9/8
Catalyst is excited to announce the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Webinar, taking place on Tuesday, September 8th from 1-2PM ET. The webinar will provide the audience with a more in-depth explanation of the newly launched COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge, in which innovators are being asked to submit their novel analytic approaches to utilizing COVID-19 symptom data to improve situational awareness & early detection capabilities. Ultimately, following the two phases of the Challenge, a 1st place winner will be awarded $50,000 and a runner up will be awarded $25,000.
The webinar, moderated by Catalyst, will feature our Challenge partners from the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM), Carnegie Mellon University, and Resolve to Save Lives, focusing on the purpose of the Challenge, background on the data, public health implications, Facebook’s role in the challenge, Challenge logistics, and more!
Don’t miss this opportunity, be sure to join on 9/8 to learn more!
Register HERE!
More about the Challenge: https://bit.ly/symptomdata
Announcing The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge
In collaboration with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Resolve to Save Lives, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Maryland, Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is excited to announce the launch of The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge is looking for novel analytic approaches that use COVID-19 Symptom Survey data to enable earlier detection and improved situational awareness of the outbreak by public health and the public.
How the Challenge Works:
In Phase I, innovators submit their novel analytic approach addressing the challenge topic and using Symptom Survey public data (see challenge submission criteria for more). Judges will evaluate the entries based on Validity, Scientific Rigor, Impact, and User Experience and award five semi-finalists $5,000 each. They will present their analytic approaches to a judging panel and three semi-finalists will be selected to advance to Phase II.
In Phase II, finalists develop a prototype (simulation or visualization) using their analytic approach and will present their prototypes in an unveiling event, during which a first place winner and runner up will be selected. The first place winner will be awarded $50,000 and the runner up (second place) will be awarded $25,000 to further develop their analytic approach.
The winning analytic design will be featured on the Facebook Data For Good website and the winning team will have the opportunity to participate in a discussion forum with representatives from public health agencies.
Phase I applications for the challenge are due Tuesday, September 29th 2020 11:59:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge HERE.
Indu Subaiya, co-founder of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (“Catalyst”) sits down with Farzad Mostashari (@Farzad_MD), Challenge Chair, to discuss the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. Indu and Farzad walk through the movement around open data as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenge goals, partners, evaluation criteria, and prizes. Click HERE to watch.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER/WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. Entry deadline September 29th, 2020 at 11:59:59 pm EDT. Open to legal residents US and worldwide who are at least the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence, excluding Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or other countries or regions subject to U.S. export controls or sanctions. Void where prohibited by law. Participation subject to Official Rules. See Official Rules for entry requirements, judging criteria and full details. Administrator: Health 2.0 LLC. Sponsor: Facebook, Inc. Partners: Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Maryland, and Resolve to Save Lives.
Announcing: The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge
In Partnership with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Resolve to Save Lives, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Maryland, Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is excited to announce the launch of The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge is looking for novel analytic approaches that use COVID-19 Symptom Survey data to enable earlier detection and improved situational awareness of the outbreak by public health and the public.
How the Challenge Works:
In Phase I, innovators submit a white paper (“digital poster”) summarizing the approach, methods, analysis, findings, relevant figures and graphs of their analytic approach using Symptom Survey public data (see challenge submission criteria for more). Judges will evaluate the entries based on Validity, Scientific Rigor, Impact, and User Experience and award five semi-finalists $5,000 each. Semi-finalists will present their analytic approaches to a judging panel and three semi-finalists will be selected to advance to Phase II. The semi-finalists will develop a prototype (simulation or visualization) using their analytic approach and present their prototype at a virtual unveiling event. Judges will select a grand prize winner and the runner up (2nd place). The grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 and the runner up will be awarded $25,000.The winning analytic design will be featured on the Facebook Data For Good website and the winning team will have the opportunity to participate in a discussion forum with representatives from public health agencies.
Phase I applications for the challenge are due Tuesday, September 29th, 2020 11:59:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge HERE.
Challenge participants will leverage aggregated data from the COVID-19 symptom surveys conducted by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, in partnership with Facebook Data for Good. Approaches can integrate publicly available anonymized datasets to validate and extend predictive utility of symptom data and should assess the impact of the integration of symptom data on identifying inflection points in state, local, or regional COVID outbreaks as well guiding individual and policy decision-making.
These are the largest and most detailed surveys ever conducted during a public health emergency, with over 25M responses recorded to date, across 200+ countries and territories and 55+ languages. Challenge partners look forward to seeing participant’s proposed approaches leveraging this data, as well as welcome feedback on the data’s usefulness in modeling efforts.
Indu Subaiya, President of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (“Catalyst”) sits down with Farzad Mostashari, CEO of Aledade, former National Coordinator of Health IT, and Challenge Chair, to discuss the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. Indu and Farzad walk through the movement around open data as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenge goals, partners, evaluation criteria, and prizes.
Video Transcript:
Indu Subaiya:
I'm delighted to be talking today with Farzad Mostashari about the COVID-19 symptom data challenge, in partnership with Facebook Data For Good, the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University, and the joint program on survey methodology at the University of Maryland. So thank you for being here as we launch this challenge. Help us set the stage, because on March 7th of this year, you noticed something unusual going on in New York City. Tell us about that.
Farzad Mostashari:
I was part of the first group of researchers 20 years ago to say “There's all this data that is part of the universe floating around that we're not using for public health purposes. What if we did?” The urgency at that time was around pandemics and bio terrorism both.
Farzad Mostashari:
And we developed this whole field of what became known as “syndromic surveillance”, public health surveillance, real time epidemiology, where we were like, "What if you tap into what's going on and apply these new statistical methods?" So at that time, the stone that we polished was emergency room visits and saying, "Can we receive all these data about emergency room visits happening in New York City?” And now it's national. And be able to track, not diagnosed cases of anything, but syndromes. Is there a respiratory syndrome? Is there difficulty breathing? Is there influenza-like illness going on in the community?" And we set up these systems. And one of the other things we did in New York City, which a lot of other jurisdictions didn't do, was we created a public facing transparency tool view of that.
Farzad Mostashari:
So 10 years later, I was sitting in my basement like so many other people worrying about what's going on with COVID. And now at that time in New York City, there were two diagnosed cases of COVID. But there was a lot of concern. And I went on that website, and it's a public website, but people just didn't know about it. And I clicked through, and I saw that cases of people going to the emergency room with respiratory distress, with difficulty breathing, with cough and fever had doubled and tripled just in the past few days. And what that told me was there are not two cases of COVID in New York City. There are tens of thousands of cases and they're doubling every three days.
Farzad Mostashari:
It took two weeks between that realization and when the schools were shut down, when the city was shut down. The promise and the premise here is that if we trust those signals, if those are trusted signals, we don't have to have hundreds of thousands of people infected and tens of thousands of people die. We can intervene sooner. The public and policy makers can both make decisions based on data that is more timely.
Indu Subaiya:
It seems almost there are three requisite factors that play into this vision that you've really set up beautifully. And one is that you need open data. You need access to data that you've always evangelized for and built in New York City and other places. You need to have mechanisms for early detection and early warning. But there's something else you've always advocated for, which is the engagement of citizen scientists. So speak to how those underpinnings of the vision came together to design this challenge specifically.
Farzad Mostashari:
So I got to hear about this incredible effort that's underway that no one knows about (to a first order of approximation) which is that there are millions of surveys a week being done all over the globe, 70 plus countries, and in every state and territory in the US where millions of people every day, they go on Facebook, they see that there's an opportunity to take a survey about COVID from an outside university, Carnegie Mellon, or University of Maryland for the global data. They click on that and they leave Facebook and they go to this other webpage and they fill out a survey that asks questions around, "Have you had symptoms in the past 24 hours? Has anyone in your household? Do you know people [who have]? Do you wear masks? Have you been careful when you go outside?" And they're answering these questions and they're actually being statistically weighed so that it's not a convenient sample, it's not whoever happens to have a thermometer at home or whatever. It's like real time, reliable information. But it's not being used!
Farzad Mostashari:
Tom Frieden, my former boss and now leading Resolve To Save Lives (a wonderful global public health organization) and I were brought in to give our thoughts about this effort. And we were both like, "This is amazing. You should push it out." And they pushed out the data in an open API. Anyone can go to the Delphi CMU. And three months later, it's still not part of the Pantheon of data that we're using to assess what's happening with the COVID. Despite all the shortcomings in all the other data systems, people aren't using it.
Farzad Mostashari:
And I think to your point, the data is there, but the engagement on polishing the stone hasn't occurred. The validation of it hasn't occurred because we don't have enough eyes on it. And it is not integrated into people's understanding of what they should do. “Should I send my kid to school? Should I go to the store? Do I wear a mask this week?” These are real decisions that real people have to make every day, and we're not giving them the benefit of what might be something that could be a real game changer.
Indu Subaiya:
Well, we've seen firsthand in some of the early analyses with this data. Speak a little bit to just some of the insights that you've seen where symptom data can tell us something differently and earlier than case rates, death rates, the kinds of data inputs that we're currently used to seeing, for the ways that this can do better.
Farzad Mostashari:
Yeah. So theoretically, let's think about the advantages. Over the three major sources of data, if I said to you, a citizen scientist, "How do we know what's going on with COVID in our community? How do we know if an outbreak is occurring? How do we know if the outbreak is peaking? How do we know if it's coming down?" There's three sources of data that we are trying to look at. And all three are flawed. The first is obviously how many diagnosed cases we have. Case numbers, case positivity, lab tests. Well, the problem with that is we had a huge dearth of lab capacity early on. There are still parts of the country and parts of the world where there is not great lab capacity. And that lab capacity is changing. And even when we do the tests, they're delayed now by seven to 10 days.
Farzad Mostashari:
And the positivity can't necessarily be relied on either, because it depends on what population you're testing. If you turn on testing of a bunch of young people, you might have a different rate. If you start testing asymptomatic people, you might have a different rate. If the people follow the CDC's recommendation and they stopped testing asymptomatics, you can have an increase ... So it's very much dependent on testing behavior. You're seeing it through this lens of testing behavior and that lens can distort.
Farzad Mostashari:
The second source of data could be deaths. Deaths are highly reliable. They're still underdiagnosed. One of our scientific committee members, Dan Weinberger, and a group of other researchers and I published an article looking at excess deaths compared to COVID deaths. And there's actual discrepancies between those two, but death is a pretty hard data point. The problem is it's weeks delayed. If we waited until we saw deaths to say that we have a problem, the outbreak would have run wild through a city before we can even address it.
Farzad Mostashari:
And then the third source of now traditional surveillance are the syndromic surveillance, emergency room, hospitalization, syndromic data that we pioneered 20 years ago. And the problem with those is that the lens you're seeing those through is health seeking behavior. And if people change their likelihood of going to the emergency room, going to doctor's offices, it obscures that lens.
Farzad Mostashari:
So with all three of these, the symptom survey data presents unique advantages. Compared to deaths, it's much more timely. In fact, compared to any of the other data sources, you would expect it to be the first indicator. It's completely unrelated to health seeking behavior or testing availability. And if you think about, and particularly in the global context, there are many countries where the lab capacity is really challenged, and even death surveillance, mortality surveillance is really challenged. This could be a major tool.
Farzad Mostashari:
That all having been said, what we have now are very preliminary evidence that this could be useful. And what we're looking for are many, many more people to put eyes on the data and find ways to polish those stones, to have the highest-value ways, for society, of using this information.
Indu Subaiya:
So available to all the citizen scientists in the world as of today will be access to these datasets through APIs, through aggregate CSVs. And Farzad, what will be the primary challenge questions that they'll be able to engage with and tackle?
Farzad Mostashari:
The main question that we're asking is can you find a way to validate whether adding in the symptom data into all the other existing data sources we have can improve the sensitivity, the specificity, the timeliness of our ability to detect what's going on with the outbreak. What are the inflection points? When is it taking off? When is it flattening? When is it coming down? And to be able to provide useful information for policy makers and the public in guiding their decisions.
Farzad Mostashari:
So we're leaving it pretty wide open, right? Come with your methods, come with your visualization. Do you want to look at it on an age stratified basis? Do you want to combine it with lab data? Do you want to incorporate the mask wearing information? Do you want to think about the granularity of it in space? Do you want to look county level, HR level, state level? Do you want to look at it in terms of time? Do you want to look at it by week or by day? All of those, do you want to apply statistical methods, clustering methods? You figure it out. But answer the question: “what is the best case to be made for how one would incorporate this data into the Pantheon of public health surveillance tools?”
Indu Subaiya:
And even though we have the academics, if you will, working on this, we're really looking for all comers.
Farzad Mostashari:
All comers.
Indu Subaiya:
Even if you're not a trained epidemiologist, but you have an interest in this data, we are making it available as of today. And contestants will have four weeks to come up with their analyses. And then we'll have some semifinalists that will present to the scientific committee. And at that point, up to five teams will be chosen to advance to a second round where they'll build visualizations and simulations, prototypes of this analysis in action. So as the contestants submit their analyses after the first four weeks, the scientific committee will be looking at certain criteria. What can people expect their submissions to be judged on?
Farzad Mostashari:
Well, I think it's kind of like having a special issue of a journal. We won't be as tough on the formatting and references as we would a real journal article, but we're basically doing the evaluation of the validity of the results.
Farzad Mostashari:
How convincing is the evidence that's being presented in terms of the additional utility of adding the symptom data and how? What are the methods that are being used? The second is the rigor with which these analyses are done. Have they considered biases confounding, some of the other potential causes for false associations? What are the limitations of that? The third is impact.
Farzad Mostashari:
If there's a method that's so complicated that it takes 20 days to run on every day's worth of data, well, that's not going to have as much impact. But what is the real likelihood of impact?
Farzad Mostashari:
And related to that, but distinct, is the user experience. How easy is it to explain? How easy is it to visualize? How easy is it to make actionable those results from the analysis? These four criteria are going to be used in the first phase. And then when we do the presentations and then with the final result, when we select the grand winner of ... What is it, $50,000? That's huge!
Indu Subaiya:
That's right. And the second place gets $25,000.
Farzad Mostashari:
$25,000! Those are the same criteria are going to be used for each of those levels.
Indu Subaiya:
Fantastic. I also want to remind folks that outside data can be brought in as long as it's made publicly available so that we can continue to feed this repository of access to data, and hopefully really combat this epidemic together.
Indu Subaiya:
So Farzad, one of the ways that we can help contestants understand the data sets being made available is there's so many partners here. Where did these data sets come from, and how does privacy work given that people have taken these surveys?
Farzad Mostashari:
The surveys are suggested to folks who are on Facebook. But then when someone clicks on that banner ad that says 'do you want to take a COVID survey,' they leave the Facebook environment entirely, and they go off to the University of Maryland or Carnegie Mellon's website.
Farzad Mostashari:
I think it's important for people to understand where the data comes from is from those anonymous surveys that are done by the universities. There is no access to the line-level data for the folks at Facebook. They don't want it, they don't have it.
Farzad Mostashari:
But that micro data is actually available to university researchers. But there are extracts made from that, which are anonymized, minimum cell size at the various levels of granularity that are currently being made public through APIs and we will make a CSV download available as well.
Farzad Mostashari:
Those are fully anonymized, fully aggregated. No one's identity is obviously going to be impacted, just says “in this county this week, there were these many cases of people who complained of having recent cough symptoms” and so forth.
Farzad Mostashari:
This is part of the Facebook Data for Good project, and I certainly believe that this is data for good.
Indu Subaiya:
And Farzad, what is your hope as these teams come forward with these ideas? Where can these findings be deployed? And what is your vision for where it goes from here outside of the challenge?
Farzad Mostashari:
Our hope is that these become just a part of the, alongside deaths and cases and hospitalizations, it's just part of what people look at. So when you go to COVID tracking or COVID Exit Strategy or the Hopkins site or the CDC, or when states or cities or governors are looking at their data, this is one of the factors that they also consider. But also the public. As Tom Frieden likes to say, "When you check the weather to see if you should take an umbrella, you should be checking a website that tells you what's going on with COVID activity in your community”- that can help guide many of the decisions that we have to make, unfortunately on a daily basis, until we have herd immunity or a vaccine, or both."
Indu Subaiya:
Absolutely. So some real, very impactful outcomes expected from this challenge. It's not just an academic exercise. Folks evaluating the finalists will be looking for how to adopt these algorithms and these visualizations into their public health dashboards, into their decision making processes. So it's a really incredibly exciting opportunity.
Indu Subaiya:
One of the things this challenge will be doing is inviting people to join a Slack channel so that they can communicate with each other. We don't see this as a one-time submission and then off you go, but really as a means to engage the community. That's always been at the forefront of what you've evangelized with the health technology community.
Farzad Mostashari:
None of us are as smart as all of us.
Indu Subaiya:
We'll go live today. And I just wanted to have a chance for you, Farzad, to share the vision behind it and what good looks like. So we're really excited to be helping support the challenge mechanism itself here at Catalyst. So thank you so much.
Farzad Mostashari:
And thank you and the team for helping sponsor this. And I hope the contestants will have a wonderful experience.
Indu Subaiya:
Thank you.
Participation subject to Official Rules NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER/WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. Entry deadline September 29th, 2020 at 11:59:59 pm EDT. Open to legal residents US and worldwide who are at least the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence, excluding Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or other countries or regions subject to U.S. export controls or sanctions. Void where prohibited by law. Participation subject to Official Rules. See Official Rules for entry requirements, judging criteria and full details. Administrator: Health 2.0 LLC. Sponsor: Facebook, Inc. Partners: Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Maryland, and Resolve to Save Lives.
Catalyst @ Health 2.0 Launches Rapid Response Open Call with Grapevine Health
Attention digital health innovators! Do you have innovative text message-based health tech solutions that can disseminate health-focused video content? Apply to the Grapevine Health Rapid Response Open Call!
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the importance of health literacy and communication is more apparent than ever. Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is proud to host a Rapid Response Open Call (RROC) in collaboration with Grapevine Health. Five semi-finalists will receive $1k each and will have the opportunity to demo their technology. A grand prize winner will receive $5k and the opportunity to collaborate with Grapevine Health!
Do you have a solution that can fit this need? Apply HERE today! Applications close 8/27.
About Grapevine Health
Grapevine Health is on the ground bridging health communication and demystifying health care for the community. Grapevine Health uses tech, videos, storytelling and collaborative conversations between community and health experts to improve health literacy and patient engagement.
Johns Hopkins Tech Startup, ROSE, Selected for Brigham and Women’s Hospital Pilot COVID-19 Program & More News...
Rapid Response Open Call Winner to Pilot with Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Rose, a technology startup that provides a HIPAA-compliant mental health monitoring platform, announced a pilot program with Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Emergency Department to support healthcare professionals and their mental health during COVID-19. The pilot program was facilitated through Rose’s participation in our Rapid Response Open Call, which sought provider-facing, text based platforms to help healthcare professionals self-monitor symptoms of coronavirus, report burnout, and access helpful resources. Following a 7-day application period, where Brigham and Women’s Hospital evaluated more than 80 quality submissions, Rose was selected as a semi-finalist and demoed their technology to the BWH team.
Are you a health care provider looking to enhance your response to COVID-19? Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is continuing to hold open calls that connect providers with urgent needs to digital health solutions. APPLY here for consideration.
AI LA, in collaboration with Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (“Catalyst”) is hosting “Digital Health During a Pandemic,” a virtual event that highlights innovative health tech responding to COVID-19 using augmented intelligence. The event aims to highlight how the pandemic has affected health tech companies and their roadmaps for the future, ultimately providing the audience with clarity into COVID response in the field. The event will take place on August 20th from 12-2PM PT and will consist of a panel discussion, exciting Q&A and project demos with CA-based startups like Anchor Health, Syllable.ai, and Quantgene, and will be moderated by Catalyst’s co-founder, Indu Subaiya. Get your tickets today!
Innovaccer, Inc., a CA-based healthcare technology company, has launched a perioperative optimization solution for health systems. The solution will help optimize surgeries and ramp up volumes by identifying high-risk patients for pre-surgical intervention while also reducing the length of stay, readmissions, and cost, ultimately allowing hospitals to track their return on investment in real-time on a customizable dashboard.
NSF Grants Funding to Patient Privacy Solution & More News...
UT and Vanderbilt Develop Tool to Safeguard Patient Data for COVID-19 Research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $200,000 grant to researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas and Vanderbilt University Medical Center who are developing an open-source tool for COVID-19. The software aims to address security concerns behind personal-level data use and sharing as COVID-19 research continues and contact tracing apps become more widespread. Combining location data with a person’s medical history increases the risk of being able to identify patients. The tool could flag instances where data should only be shared on a restricted basis.
Catalyst @ Health 2.0 Launches Rapid Response Open Calls (RROCs) in Response to COVID-19
Applications for Rapid Response Open Calls (RROCs) are still OPEN! RROCs are launched on Catalyst’s Health Tech Responds to COVID-19 platform, and aim to connect health care providers with urgent needs to the digital health community. RROCs can be streamlined within days, and have the potential to support organizations, hospitals, health systems, and more to leverage health tech solutions to maximize their response to COVID-19.
Interested in learning more about the ways we can work together to solve your organization’s needs? Click here.
RWJF Emergency Response for the General Public Challenge: Apps Closing Soon
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is seeking digital health tools that can support the diverse needs of individuals during an emergency situation. During an emergency situation, (e.g. pandemics and outbreaks, natural disasters or severe weather, radiation and chemical spills) the public faces a deluge of information, misinformation, and recommendations. In addition, they may lack access to vital resources like health care, medications for chronic conditions, emotional support, food, and shelter. These challenges may have potentially life-threatening implications for individuals and their communities.
Example solutions include:
Solutions that help consumers understand clinical guidelines/recommendations during an outbreak
Apps that connect consumers with resources (e.g. cleaning supplies, medications, testing capability) during an emergency or disaster
Technologies that address consumers’ physical and mental well-being during and following emergencies
How the challenge works:
In Phase I, innovators submit their tech-enabled solutions addressing the challenge topic by June 12th, 2020 11:59 PM ET. Judges will evaluate the entries based on Impact, UX/UI, Innovation/Creativity, and Scalability. The top five teams will move onto Phase II.
Do you have a health tech solution that can address the obstacles faced by the general public during an emergency? Apply today!
Announcing: Subsidized Rapid Response Open Calls
In collaboration with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is proud to announce funding for health care providers with limited resources and urgent needs to identify and source digital health innovation during COVID-19 through our Rapid Response Open Calls (RROC). RROCs are streamlined calls for applications that connect health care providers to digital health solutions. Deployed as part of Catalyst’s Health Tech Responds to COVID-19 platform, RROCs can be launched within days to meet the host’s needs.
Catalyst created the RROC to address an urgent need from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Emergency Department for provider-facing, text based platforms to help healthcare professionals self-monitor symptoms of coronavirus, report burnout, and access helpful resources. Within one day, the Brigham and Women’s Health RROC was launched. In a 7-day application period, Catalyst received an overwhelmingly positive response with more than 80 quality submissions. BWH was able to evaluate the submissions through a streamlined process and 5 innovators were selected to demo their solutions to the BWH ED team. BWH began pursuing a potential partnership with one of the semi-finalists.
If you are a healthcare provider with limited resources during COVID-19 (e.g. FQHCs, community health centers, etc.), apply for a subsidized RROC HERE!
COVID-19 Fingerprint Test in Development & More News...
Rapid COVID-19 Fingerprint Test in Development
Intelligent Fingerprinting, a diagnostics firm in the UK, has partnered with Imperial College London to develop a COVID-19 fingerprint test. Built upon Intelligent Fingerprinting’s existing technology, the test collects fingerprint sweat onto a small cartridge for analysis. It is read by a portable DSR-Plus analysis unit, which provides a positive or negative result on-screen in 10 minutes. If the approach is validated, the fingerprint-based test could be used by non-medical staff in settings such as care homes and workplaces.
Cloud-based Platform Analyzes SDoH to Support Contact Tracing Efforts
Verato, an identity services provider, has launched Verato Enrich. The platform uses their cloud-based enterprise master person index (EMPI) to make demographic and SDoH information more complete in order to facilitate COVID-19 contact tracing efforts. It can append a wide array of data ranging from basic contact information like missing phone numbers and addresses to lifestyle data like income, ethnicity, transportation options and access to resources. Access to this type of data allows public health officials to gain access to key insights to support contact tracing, a vital next step in flattening the curve of the pandemic.
Announcing the 2020 RWJF Emergency Response Challenges
Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is proud to power the RWJF Emergency Response Innovation Challenges. The Emergency Response for the Health Care System Challenge seeks digital tools that can support the health care system during a large-scale health crisis (pandemic, natural disaster, or other public health emergency). Examples include but are not limited to tools that can support providers, government, and public health and community organizations. The Emergency Response for the General Public Challenge is looking for health technology tools to support the needs of individuals whose lives have been affected by a large-scale health crisis.
During a large-scale health crisis, the health care system is at risk of reaching patient capacity and workflow bottlenecks. The public faces a lack of credible, easy to understand information and access to critical resources like food, shelter, and emotional support.
If you have a digital health solution that is in a unique position to help consumers navigate information, find needed resources, and more during these difficult times, apply today!
To apply to the Emergency Response for the Health Care System Challenge, click here.
To apply to the Emergency Response for the General Public Challenge, click here.
IBM Tackles COVID-19 Supply Chain & More News...
IBM Launches Blockchain Network to Mitigate Supply Shortages amidst COVID-19
IBM has launched the IBM Rapid Supplier Connect. The blockchain-based network aims to help government agencies and health care organizations identify new, non-traditional suppliers who have pivoted to address the shortage of equipment, devices, and supplies needed for COVID-19. It is free to buyers and suppliers in the U.S. and Canada until August 31st, 2020.The tech company’s response comes amidst the dire shortage of critical goods needed to protect front line workers as againstCOVID-19. Hospitals and organizations such as Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare provider, and The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation, are joining the network.
Fruit Street Health Launches Telehealth Platform for COVID-19
The diabetes prevention digital health company Fruit Street Health has launched CovidMD, a risk assessment, triage, and telemedicine platform. CovidMD’s fully automated virtual care platform connects patients to healthcare providers and supports live video chat. It allows providers to share education materials, keep detailed patient data, and record session notes. CovidMD plans to integrate Conversa Health’s automated virtual care and communications platform, which will engage patients throughout the site. CovidMD also plans to expand its services to patients across the U.S.
Act Fast—Apply to GW’s COVID-19 Health Innovation Collaborative
In 10 days, applications are closing for GuideWell’s COVID-19 Health Innovation Collaborative. As a health solutions company, GuideWell is committed to helping discover and source innovative technology solutions that have the potential to alleviate some of the health care challenges people in communities face during public health emergencies. The collaborative is seeking to connect diverse innovative health technology companies across the U.S. in response to the coronavirus.
Do you have an innovative solution in response to COVID-19? GuideWell wants to hear from you! Apply here. Applications close May 8th, 2020.
Calling Health Tech Companies: GuideWell is Seeking Solutions against COVID-19
GuideWell has launched the COVID-19 Health Innovation Collaborative to identify and support solutions that can immediately increase the scope and scale of resources aimed at reducing the complex stress factors COVID-19 is bringing to bear on the U.S. health system.
There will be five categories of focus under this collaborative, and proposed solutions must directly address at least one of these categories:
● Home based self-testing solutions for the COVID-19 virus
● Virtual, in-home care solutions for at-risk populations that have limited access to health care services
● Solutions that reduce risk for health care providers in clinical settings, including approaches for increasing protection of clinical staff
● Solutions focused on reducing social isolation due to COVID-19 diagnosis or social distancing
● Solutions for delivering food and urgently needed supplies to at-risk populations and households with COVID-19 exposure or symptoms
The COVID-19 Collaborative’s overarching objective is to source a diverse portfolio of innovative companies that collectively have the potential to respond to the pandemic in the above categories. For each category, a cohort of 3-5 companies will be selected to work together to create a connected, high impact approach to addressing the program category.
If you are an innovator, health tech entrepreneur or researcher with a solution in response to #COVID19, apply today!
Deadline to apply: May 8th, 2020.
Health Tech Against COVID-19 & More News
Health Tech Responds to COVID-19
Catalyst @ Health 2.0 has created an inventory of information on 140+ innovators and their active efforts to support the response to COVID-19. Through this new initiative, Health Tech Responds to COVID-19, Catalyst is committed to informing the public with thoughtful, curated content on digital health innovations tackling COVID-19. The website also features interviews and blog posts that capture the expert insights from leaders in the health care, information technology, and digital health space.
If your company is working to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, or you have expert insights regarding the pandemic, we want to hear from you! Respond HERE.
Apple Launches Screening and Resources Tool for COVID-19
Apple has announced the launch of a COVID-19 website and corresponding app. The tech giant is collaborating with the CDC, White House Coronavirus Task Force, and FEMA on the new screening and informational platform. Users are directed to next steps after answering questions designed to assess symptoms, risk, and exposure. Users can also tap into resources like Siri to ask questions regarding coronavirus symptoms, view resources from the CDC, and access directions to telehealth apps. As coronavirus cases top 700,000 worldwide, organizations like Apple are mobilizing to offer help at point-of-care.
FDA Gives Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Malaria Drugs for COVID-19
Despite current limited evidence to support their efficacy, the FDA has granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for two oral formulations of closely related malaria drugs to treat COVID-19. The EUA includes restrictions regarding prescription requirements and the governing bodies in charge of issuing the drug supply. The agency issued the EUA to facilitate the drugs’ availability for patients for whom clinical trials are unavailable or for whom participation is not feasible.