Health and Life Sciences at the Edge

The rising cost of health care has hit Americans differently depending on their economic status. There is no shortage of news stories covering the reality of  those with higher incomes having higher life expectancies than those in lower financial brackets. Healthcare services such as clinical diagnostic testing may be out of reach for those who could really use it. So what are some the things a company can do to make clinical diagnostic testing more accessible for everyone? How can an important medical test be affordable to all?On this episode of Health & Life Sciences at the Edge, host Michelle Dawn Mooney talks with Intel Head of Business Innovation and Life Science Specialist Blake Harlan and SiPhox Chief Product Officer Mike Dubrovsky about clinical diagnostic testing, the way it is used, and the way its use can be improved.“Clinical diagnostic testing is actually a major part of the [healthcare] system,” says Dubrovsky. “Seventy percent of all medical decisions require diagnostic tests. However, the way that it’s done now is very reactive, so the whole system is based on first the patient having symptoms and then they’re put through a series of tests to try to resolve the problem.” Harlan and Dubrovsky further mention how it’s easy for those in higher income brackets to get tested more often, as those types of tests cost much more than the ones for reactive patients who are presently experiencing symptoms.“The way the healthcare system works now is it’s really set up to, for the person, once they get sick, to deal with that” says Dubrovsky. He points out how the system is primarily designed to treat reactive care. “The problem is that there is a massive rise in healthcare costs, accompanied with actually a decrease in life expectancy, at least in America”, where six out of ten Americans have at least one chronic disease. In a country that spends so much on healthcare research, Harlan and Dubrovsky think the country needs to shift its thinking and policies when it comes to the health of its citizens.Learn more about network operations center solutions by connecting with Blake Harlan and Mike Dubrovsky on LinkedIn or visiting SiPhox or Intel Health and Life Sciences.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

The rising cost of health care has hit Americans differently depending on their economic status. There is no shortage of news stories covering the reality of  those with higher incomes having higher life expectancies than those in lower financial brackets. Healthcare services such as clinical diagnostic testing may be out of reach for those who could really use it. So what are some the things a company can do to make clinical diagnostic testing more accessible for everyone? How can an important medical test be affordable to all?On this episode of Health & Life Sciences at the Edge, host Michelle Dawn Mooney talks with Intel Head of Business Innovation and Life Science Specialist Blake Harlan and SiPhox Chief Product Officer Mike Dubrovsky about clinical diagnostic testing, the way it is used, and the way its use can be improved.“Clinical diagnostic testing is actually a major part of the [healthcare] system,” says Dubrovsky. “Seventy percent of all medical decisions require diagnostic tests. However, the way that it’s done now is very reactive, so the whole system is based on first the patient having symptoms and then they’re put through a series of tests to try to resolve the problem.” Harlan and Dubrovsky further mention how it’s easy for those in higher income brackets to get tested more often, as those types of tests cost much more than the ones for reactive patients who are presently experiencing symptoms.“The way the healthcare system works now is it’s really set up to, for the person, once they get sick, to deal with that” says Dubrovsky. He points out how the system is primarily designed to treat reactive care. “The problem is that there is a massive rise in healthcare costs, accompanied with actually a decrease in life expectancy, at least in America”, where six out of ten Americans have at least one chronic disease. In a country that spends so much on healthcare research, Harlan and Dubrovsky think the country needs to shift its thinking and policies when it comes to the health of its citizens.Learn more about network operations center solutions by connecting with Blake Harlan and Mike Dubrovsky on LinkedIn or visiting SiPhox or Intel Health and Life Sciences.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

The nucleus of a hospital is increasingly becoming its network operations center. If the system isn’t connected, communication breaks down. The evolution of network operations centers in healthcare and how to build an effective one drives the conversation on this episode of Health and Life Sciences at the Edge by Intel. Intel’s Global Head of Health solutions, Alex Flores hosts What You Do Matters’ National Director Todd Larson.Larson said, “Let’s take all of the high-level decision makers, starting with security, emergency management, our IT partners with intrusion & cyber, our cameras, and our surveillance, and then we can move into visitation, patient monitoring, and we continue to expand.” These network operations centers, when built correctly, allow multiple hospitals and facilities to interconnect and realize efficiencies and cost savings.While many organizations recognize the benefits of a network operation center, others aren’t always easily convinced. Larson says involving key stakeholders is essential for winning the day.“I always believe strongly in involving the people who need to be involved, getting the people who are part of the process involved early on so they’re part of the implementation. Bring nursing in; bring hospital operations in; bring any unit that you will involve into the NOC, and bring them in.”Utilizing a network operations center for coordinated care creates a positive patient and staff experience today. Larson says the future of network operations centers is wide open.“In the future, let’s discuss implementation from a trauma perspective. I’ve had my trauma surgeons say to me, why can’t I be in the ambulance? Why can’t I be right there on scene? If you know anything about paramedics, they work under a medical director’s license. So, why is it that we can’t think about a future where the NOC gets that call? Now the patient is in the ambulance, that information is being fed to the patient transport and transfer center as part of the NOC. They are already entering the patient in; the patient’s enroute. Could the surgeon be in the ambulance on some telemedicine platform, assisting and directing that care? It could truly be something lifesaving where seconds can save a life.”Technology innovations will play a central role in transforming network operations centers. And Larson believes leveraging augmented AI is critical to that success.“We have to start utilizing AI, whether through our cameras, software platforms, or maybe we have to build some of this. But ultimately, utilizing AI saves clinicians time because a lot of what they do is task-driven, and if we can take some of those tasks out of their daily function, they can truly care for the patient.” For its part, Intel spends a lot of time working with ecosystems on optimizing different algorithms and getting them to work appropriately to augment the clinician’s duties.Learn more about network operations center solutions by connecting with Todd Larson and Alex Flores on LinkedIn or visiting What You Do Matters (WYDM) Institute or Intel Health and Life Sciences.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

Open-Source software’s flexibility through its distribution with the source code gives programmers the power to modify and distribute with its original rights. That versatility allows many technological innovations within the Health and Life Science space. Intel partners with Health and Life Science organizations on a wide range of solutions, and open-source is critical to bringing new advancements to life. Health and Life Science at the Edge’s Morgan Andersen welcomed Intel Product Manager Amy Gilliam and Director of Security Communications Christopher Robinson for a discussion on open-source, everything from what it is, what the culture is like, and managing the quality of the code.Gilliam says the culture around open source has grown to become a collaborative environment that’s enhanced over the years. Open exchange, de-centralized coding collaboration and peer review are all norms that move open source in a positive direction. “Peer review is a huge part of the open-source development process, in which developers submit code, it gets reviewed by multiple team members and project members before it gets integrated into the main code base by the maintainer,” Gilliam adds. From Robinson’s perspective, open source thrives because of the collaboration community. “I’ve been doing security in upstream open source for just under a decade, and I get to work with people from all around the world. We used to have a concept frequently talked about; it was called meritocracy; whereas you were contributing to these communities, people would put forth other ideas, and normally the best idea will win out. After much review and conversation, you’ll generally have better quality code because you’ve had all these different types of inputs.” So, how does security factor into open source when privacy is critical to a lot of work done in the health and life science world? Some essential regulations and rules govern the industry to protect human life. Gilliam says technology developers must familiarize themselves with these regulations and ensure the flexibility and capability to meet those compliance requirements now and in the future. “The FDA requires disclosures of software submission,” Gilliam said. “So, along with those disclosures of software, are usually calling out of risks and mitigations. Those can be cybersecurity risks, privacy risks, etc. We’re monitoring for that as we’re building software and these analytical tools that will help leverage and accelerate processes in the pharmaceutical industry.” Learn more about Open Source solutions by connecting with Amy Gilliam and Christopher Robinson on LinkedIn or visit Intel Health and Life Sciences.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

Next-generation digital workflows are at the forefront of advancing how clinicians deliver healthcare. Intel partners with custom EMR workflow providers such as SaVia Health to improve those solutions and make new ones possible. Intel Head of Global Health Solutions Alex Flores recently sat down with SaVia Health CEO and Chairman William Caldwell to pull back the curtain for a revealing look at what’s driving the opportunity to create the next generation of digital workflows.Caldwell says redefining what healthcare technology looks like is an important starting point to improve healthcare outcomes for patients. “Many physicians and providers still associate technology with adding work to our workflow, not making it easier to take the best care of patients. Providers want to do the right thing, and what we’ve built in the United States, particularly around documentation, is a way to document and bill, but what we haven’t done a great job of is helping me, the doc, do the right thing to take care of the patient.”As Caldwell sees it, the challenge to improving patient outcomes is taking all the documentation, data, and analysis the healthcare technology already provides and creating a path from point A to point B. “If we can create something that fills that gap that not only tells us we’re doing something wrong, and only telling us how well we’re doing against a metric, but helps us go from point A to point B, that’s been the missing piece in healthcare.”Caldwell and SaVia Health focus on making clinicians’ lives easier through its custom digital workflow solutions. “We not only create the content, but we provide the content to the clinician, to the person taking care of the patient, in real-time, at the point of care,” Caldwell says. “We make it usable. So, we facilitate clinicians doing the right thing.”Changing patient behavior is an area Caldwell believes is essential to making a giant leap forward in improving outcomes and creating a better healthcare digital workflow, where asking the right questions can make a difference. “We need to put a process in place that can help physicians not only leverage the best practices and knowledge we all have, and the data we have, but also help us advise patients in a way that can change behavior and help them be compliant with recommended therapies. That’s a huge opportunity, going forward, in healthcare.”Connect with William Caldwell and Alex Flores on LinkedIn or visit Intel Healthcare and Life Sciences to learn more about next-generation digital healthcare workflows.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

On this episode of Intel’s Health and Life Sciences at the Edge, host Gabrielle Bejarano chats with Providence Health System VP and Chief Talent Officer Darci Hall and Intel Health Account Executive Jeffrey Berghammer about the opportunities for augmented reality and immersive technologies to support digital transformation in healthcare.    When the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered some healthcare clinic doors, leaders at Providence healthcare knew changes needed to be made in how they delivered services to their patients and providers. Providence Health System began creating immersive, 3-D videos to help patients learn physical therapy exercises at home on their smartphone,s and create internal training videos to continue engaging their current workforce.  Hall remarks, "...We start to think about more consistent engagement from our current workforce and attracting new caregivers into Providence by innovating. And so, those are things that we're looking at now, especially regarding workforce crisis and being able to provide consistent patient care across our organization." The videos Providence creates to help patients and healthcare professionals use 20 Intel®️ RealSense™️ depth-sensing cameras to capture 360-degree actions in what is called "volumetric capture." The footage is then converted into a 3D virtual environment or augmented reality. This unique technology solution set a new golden standard for at-home and after-care, which can be shared amongst patients along the healthcare system's 51 hospitals.Instead of sitting on a waitlist, patients have been able to view immersive videos describing what kinds of activities the patient will have to do after they’re done with surgery. “I think one of the specific areas that Intel was very interested in partnering with Providence on was the translation and localization that was going to be done to help underserved communities - communities where English isn’t the primary language,"  says Berghammer.   Using funding from the Intel Pandemic Response Technology Initiative, Providence built its first filming studio in 2021 and has received further funding from Intel to work with the Gronstedt Group, a leader in augmented and virtual reality development. They hope to create Providence's first smartphone app.  "This is one way for us not only to drive an innovative approach to the future of learning internally but then eventually provide that out to our communities and our patients as well," explains Hall. By automating patient learning with immersive experiences, Providence expects lower costs, better caregiver experiences, and improved patient health outcomes. To learn more about the future of this immersive virtual environment and the healthcare industry, connect with Jeffrey Berghammer and Darci Hall on LinkedIn. Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Network and Edge Solutions Group.

Healthcare organizations generate massive amounts of data, so much so that the challenge becomes how and where to move it and store it.Health and Life Science at the Edge host, Gabrielle Bejarano, spoke with Zettar's Chin Fang and Intel's Michael McManus for a peek inside the technology solutions Zettar and Intel are partnering on to advance the challenge of data movement, processing, and storage for healthcare organizations.Genomics files are a perfect example of the type of sizable data files that life science companies are creating. "When you go to genomics, for example, genomics files, a whole genome for a single person is about 350 gigabytes," McManus says. "So, if you're sequencing many people, you multiply however many people, you're sequencing times 350 gigabytes for your storage planning purpose." And he says cryoelectronic microscopy data sets are multiple terabytes in sizes. The data is broken into single gigabyte movies, and the average microscope can create thousands of those an hour. And then, the data requires analysis.Chin adds there are some institutions Zettar works with whose processes generate files as big as four terabytes with rates of one terabyte per second that requires aggressive data reduction to reduce that to the gross rate of 800 Gbps, or 100 gigabytes per second.These huge datasets cause a myriad of problems for technicians, scientists, and IT staff, including wasted time, frustration, and a loss of productivity.Standard data-moving practices can't handle these complex situations, so Zettar's approach utilizes an efficient unified data-mover model. "With Intel's help, we developed this real-time capability, so now we make the real-time data movement readily available to anyone who needs it, and then this will have great benefits to accelerate the healthcare and life sciences research efforts going forward," Chin says.Learn more about Health and Life Science data movement solutions by connecting with Chin Fang and Michael McManus on LinkedIn or visit Intel Health and Life Sciences.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Health and Life Sciences at the Edge.

Historically, people have opted into research, shared their health data, or taken part in patient surveys. Data had to be collected in a central location with the consent of the users. These paths keep private information protected but unfortunately, it eliminates a considerable amount of data available. However, with federated learning, it’s possible to collect confidential information, maintain anonymity, and increase data quality. Intel’s Morgan Andersen spoke with Andrew Lamkin, Software Product Manager, and Patrick Foley, the Lead Architect of OpenFL, to discuss a groundbreaking use case of Open Federated Learning (OFL) and the exciting potential of the model. “This goes a little different than our other technologies at Intel, as it is an open-source one,” said Andersen.OpenFL is a federated learning model. Google introduced federated learning in 2017 to improve text prediction without taking identifying information from Android users (Open Zone). “The short of it is that federated learning deals with sending the model to where the data resides, out at the edge, instead of sending data to a central place for the purpose of training,” said Foley.Intel collaborated with the University of Pennsylvania and applied federated learning to healthcare. The use case applied explicitly to brain tumors, identifying the lines of the tumors, and determining which ones were operable and inoperable. The study brought in 71 research institutions from around the world. “these models were able to identify operable tumor regions 33 percent better than a model that was trained on public data alone,” said Foley. The study was instrumental in proving that the model was effective in medical research and that it protected patient information.Python is at the core of OpenFL. “The project, very early on, had the realization of ‘your main customers are data scientists,’ right? So meeting them where they are and in the tool sets that they work, was really kind of crucial to getting things going and being as fast and sot of as robust as things are today,” said Lamkin. Python is used widely in deep learning, ideal use for OpenFL. OpenFL also links to Jupiter Notebook, where models are developed. With enough demand, Intel’s OpenFL could grow to work with additional programs. “There’s really only a few multinational companies that could really attempt to centralize all the data sets. I mean that have a presence in enough hospitals, that have a presence globally, at a global scale to put it all together,” said Lamkin. Five years ago, the option to source data on this scale was impossible. With OpenFL, researchers have a remarkable ability to develop insights from confidential data in all industries.Learn more about OpenFL by visiting the OpenFL Github and joining the OpenFL Slack Community or connecting with Andrew Lamkin and Patrick Foley on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Health and Life Sciences at the Edge.

The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) is a global nonprofit specializing in the advancement of ethical, effective, equitable, and safe use of digital technology for redefining healthcare and optimizing lives. Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of DiMe, spoke with Intel’s Head of Global Health Solutions Alex Flores on the advancements in remote patient monitoring and the role technology plays in this.Remote patient monitoring allows parsing out different digital phenotypes within certain disease states to effectively match treatment with the patient. Goldsack says, “In those broad disease states, where there’s very little that we can do to either ameliorate symptoms of the disease or cure the disease — something like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease. We’re hopeful that these new measures can start to advance the field.”Goldsack believes there is a much more practical reason for remote patient monitoring to become an essential focus of care: the evolving role and methods of healthcare today.“We must start thinking about how we can start to monitor people’s health outside the clinic walls,” she explains. “How can we think about patients with complex chronic diseases who may have episodic conditions with flare-ups? How can we monitor their well-being and health performance under clinicians’ care without bringing them into the hospital every time?”The reality that healthcare presently faces  is a shortage of doctors and clinicians to treat the number of patients. Remote patient care is one healthcare solution that helps ensure the patient gets the best care possible, even with reduced resources available. “We can use remote patient monitoring to get early signals… [and] we can intervene and care for them before those outcomes become bad and before they become pricey,” Goldsack says.The technology behind remote patient monitoring must be high quality to make high-quality clinical decisions. Clinical validation of the gathered data is vital in this process. Goldsack says it’s also crucial that the technology deployed is an affordable solution, because if it isn’t, then it won’t be sustainable.In terms of utilizing AI in the remote patient monitoring process, Goldsack says there is unlimited potential. Still, it is important to keep things in perspective and focus on the most critical challenges first. “We should look at the ability to identify particular phenotypes within large population-level data sets,” she notes. “AI might be able to tell us if we deliver the right data that some patients do well, and for whatever reasons, some patients end up having a fall and an injury and come back into the hospital within four weeks. It might be that we have no idea what the differences are between those patients who fall and those who don’t.” AI could help make those determinations.Learn more about remote patient monitoring by connecting with Jennifer Goldsack or Alex Flores on LinkedIn or visit: Intel The Digital Medicine Society Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Health and Life Sciences at the Edge.

Health data makes up more than 30% of the world’s data (Intel, 2022) — and it’s growing each year. The data is more than tangible, straightforward information, like dates of vaccinations and test results. It also includes contextual data, like neighborhood qualities, diet trackers, exercise trackers, sleep monitors, and more. Intel’s principal health engineer, Abhishek Khowala, and Agata Chudzinska, head of AI at TheBlue.AI, discuss the necessity of anonymously sharing health data.With a worldwide shortage of providers, ageing populations, and increasing multi-chronic diseases, sharing, understanding, and learning from health data is more critical than ever. Shared data helps with quicker drug development, more effortless transfer of care, and higher collaboration between research institutes.“Structured data is what can be presented in a relational database. We pretty much know what fields are related to privacy, and it is a little easier to redact those or remove that from the data. However, the vast majority — over 80% of data — is unstructured; it is tougher to analyze this unstructured data and find out where exactly there is any kind of identifiable information,” says Khowala.One solution to this issue is natural language processing, an AI feature applied to clinical notes to ensure anonymity. The technology can make sense of the text and remove identifiable information.Intel and The Blue.AI implemented a mixed-reality solution at a Florida hospital. The solution included multiple sensors and cameras which collected data about patients and staff, they then used Computer vision technology to remove any personally identifiable information.“In all of these cases, we always need to give humans the possibility to check it,” Chudzinska explains. One example was a photograph of clinicians with their consent after surgery. However, a screen was visible in the background with the name and patient information on it who had undergone surgery. “It’s not always obvious what kind of information can be visible that leads to a specific individual,” Chudzinska continues.Protecting personal identifiers when sharing health data is just as necessary as sharing the data itself. “What use would the medical data be if it is not shared?” Khowala asks. Ensuring protection is a barrier to data sharing. “Over 70% of the countries worldwide — about 140 countries — already have some kind of regulation that protect the data and privacy of the individuals,” says Chudzinska. AI streamlines the protection process for facilities and makes it possible to remove personal information in minutes and hours instead of days or months with human analysis.Follow leaders in AI technology, Agata Chudzinska and Abhishek Khowala on LinkedIn. Learn more about Intel’s applied AI health data case studies on the website.Subscribe to this channel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to hear more from the Intel Health and Life Sciences at the Edge.