David S. Read

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Medicaid Managed Care Congress (MMCC) in Baltimore, MD and the privilege of speaking with a variety of leaders from provider, payer, and services organizations. With me from Blue Slate Solutions were Scott Van Buren and Chris Garber. A common theme we heard as we spoke with the attendees was the challenge of bringing data together from multiple sources and making sense of that information.

Medicaid is potentially the most complex government program that exists in the United States. There are federal and state aspects as well as portions that are handled at a local level. Some funding and services are defined as required while others are optional. The financial models’ formulas involve many variables. In short, there are numerous challenges in Medicaid, including the dual eligible changes that seek to address the services disconnects that often exist when a person is eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.

Combining data from providers, payers, patients, government entities and the community are all necessary in order to optimize the quality of care that is provided to each patient. The definition of provider continues to expand, covering not just the medical needs of a person but incorporating the various social services, so important to the holistic care of an individual, under the umbrella of “provider.”

As we listened to people and talked about their data challenges we were also able to walk them through the Data Unleashed™ approach. The iterative learn-as-you-go process resonated across the board, whether people represented patient advocacy groups, provider organizations or healthcare plans. The capability to start small, obtain value quickly and adapt rapidly to changing environments fits the Medicaid complexities well.

If you would like to learn more about our agile and lightweight approach to accessing data from across your enterprise in order to quickly begin creating meaningful reporting and analytics, please check out dataunleashed.com for descriptions, videos and case studies. We’d also appreciate the opportunity to host a webinar with your team where we can explore Data Unleashed™ in more depth and discuss your specific data challenges.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Semantic Arts’ training class entitled, “Designing and Building Business Ontologies.”  The course, led by Dave McComb and Simon Robe, provided an excellent introduction to semantic technologies and tools as well as coverage of ontological best practices.  I thoroughly enjoyed the 4-day class and achieved my principle goals in attending; namely to understand the semantic web landscape, including technologies such as RDF, RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, as well as the current state of tools and products in this space.

Both Dave and Simon have a deep understanding of this subject area.  They also work with clients using this technology so they bring real-world examples of where the technology shines and where it has limitations.  I recommend this class to anyone who is seeking to reach a baseline understanding of semantic technologies and ontology strategies.

Why am I so interested in semantic web technology?  I am convinced that structuring information such that it can be consumed by systems, in ways more automated than current data storage and association techniques allow, is required in order to achieve any meaningful advancement in the field of information technology (IT). Whether wiring together web services or setting up ETL jobs to create data marts, too much IT energy is wasted on repeatedly integrating data sources; essentially manually wiring together related information in the absence of the computer being able to wire it together autonomously!

(more…)

I have been following the work being done by The Brain Observatory at UCSD to carefully section the brain of patient H.M. The patient, whose identity was protected while he was living, is known as the most studied amnesiac.  His amnesia was caused by brain surgery he underwent when he was 27 years old.

Screenshot from the live broadcast of Project H.M.'s brain slicing process

I won’t redocument his history, it is widely available on various websites, a few of which I’ll list at the end of this posting.  For me, this study is fascinating in terms of the completely open way the work is being done.  The process of sectioning the brain was broadcast in real time on UCSD’s website.  The entire process that is being followed is being discussed in an open forum.  The data being collected will be freely available.  For me this shows the positive way that the web can be leveraged.

I spend so much time in the world of commercial and proprietary software solutions that I sometimes end up with a distorted view of how the web is used.  Most of my interactions on the web are in the creation of applications that are owned and controlled by companies whose content is only available to individuals with some sort of financial relationship with the web site owner.

Clearly sites like Wikipedia make meaningful content available at no cost to the user.  However, in the case of this work at UCSD, there is an enormous expense in terms of equipment and people in order to collect, store, refine and publish this data.  This is truly a gift being offered to those with an interest in this field.  I’m sure that other examples exist and perhaps a valuable service would be one that helps to organize such informational sites.

If you are interested in more information about H.M. and the project at UCSD, here are some relevant websites:

• Project H.M.: http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hmblog/
• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_%28patient%29
• NY Times Obituary for H.M.: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html
• S.D. Union Tribune Article on Project H.M.: http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/30/hm-recollected-famous-amnesic-launches-bold-new-br/