health

Making Open Innovation Ecosystems Work: Case Studies in Healthcare

Curated on September 16, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

New paper by Donald E. Wynn, Jr., Renee M. E. Pratt and Randy V. Bradley for the Business of Government Center: “In the mist of tightening budgets, many government agencies are being asked to deliver innovative solutions to operational and strategic problems. One way to address this dilemma is to participate in open innovation. This report addresses two key components of open innovation:

Adopting external ideas from private firms, universities, and individuals into the agency’s innovation practices
Pushing innovations developed internally to the public by reaching out to external channels

To illustrate how open innovation can work, the authors employ the concept of the technological ecosystem to demonstrate that fostering innovations cannot be done alone.

Successful technological ecosystems create innovation through the combination of five key elements:

Resources – the contribution made and exchanged among the participants of an ecosystem
Participants – the characteristics of the participants
Relationships – the relationships and interaction among the participants
Organization –of the ecosystem as a whole
External environment in which the ecosystem operates

This report examines both strategies by studying two cases of government-sponsored participation in technological ecosystems in the health care industry:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) built a new ecosystem around its VistA electronic health records software in order to better facilitate the flow of innovation practices and processes between the VA and external agencies and private firms.
The state of West Virginia selected a variant of the VistA software for deployment in its hospital system, saving a significant amount of money while introducing a number of new features and functionality for the seven medical facilities.

As a result of these studies, the authors have identified 10 best practices for agencies seeking to capitalize on open innovation. These best practices include encouraging openness and transparency, minimizing internal friction and bureaucracy, and continuously monitoring external conditions….(More)”

White House Announces New Steps to Improve Federal Programs by Leveraging Research Insights

Curated on September 16, 2015August 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Factsheet: “Today the White House will announce new actions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Federal programs by leveraging research insights about how people participate in, engage with, and respond to programs. Announcements include: an Executive Order, new guidance to Federal agencies to make government forms simpler and easier, and a report from the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.

The report features the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team’s first year of projects, which have made government programs easier to access and more user-friendly, and have boosted program efficiency and integrity. As a result of these projects, more Servicemembers are saving for retirement, more students are going to college, more Veterans are accessing their benefits, more farmers are obtaining credit, and more families are gaining healthcare coverage.

The Federal Government administers a wide array of programs on behalf of the American people, such as financial aid to assist with college access and workplace savings plans to promote retirement security. Americans are best served when these programs are easy to access and when program choices and information are presented clearly. When programs are designed without these considerations in mind, Americans can incur real consequences. One behavioral science study found, for example, that a complex application process for college financial aid not only decreased applications for aid, but also led some students to delay or forgo going to college altogether.

Behavioral science insights—research insights about how people make decisions—not only identify aspects of programs that can act as barriers to engagement, but also provide policymakers with insight into how those barriers can be removed through commonsense steps, such as simplifying communications and making choices more clear. That same study on financial aid found that streamlining the process of applying—by providing families with assistance and enabling families to automatically fill parts of the application using information from their tax return—increased the rates of both aid applications and college enrollment.

When these insights are used to improve government, the returns can be significant. For instance, the Federal Government applied behavioral science insights to simplify the process of applying for Federal student aid and has made college more accessible to millions of American families. Similarly, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which codified the practice of automatically enrolling workers into retirement savings plans, is based on behavioral economics research showing that switching from an opt-in to an opt-out enrollment system dramatically increases participation rates. Since the implementation of this policy, automatic enrollment and automatic escalation have led to billions of dollars in additional savings by Americans.

More Details on Today’s Announcements

Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order that directs Federal agencies to use behavioral science insights to better serve the American people. The Executive Order directs Federal agencies to identify programs in which applying behavioral science insights can yield substantial improvements; develop strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs, and, where possible, for rigorously testing and evaluating the impact of these insights; recruit behavioral science experts to join the Federal Government; and strengthen agency relationships with the research community.

The Executive Order directs Federal agencies to take action in four areas in which prior research and practice indicate that behavioral science insights can play an especially strong role in program outcomes:

Streamlining access to programs: Agencies should look for opportunities to help qualifying individuals, families, and businesses access programs and benefits by streamlining processes that may otherwise limit participation.
Improving the presentation of information: Agencies should look for opportunities to improve how the government presents information to consumers, borrowers, and program beneficiaries by giving greater consideration to ways in which information format, timing, and medium can affect understanding.
Structuring choices carefully: Where programs and policies offer choices, agencies should carefully consider how the presentation and structure of those choices, including default settings and the number and arrangement of options, can empower participants to make the best choices for themselves and their families.
Considering a full range of incentives: Where policies create incentives to take specific actions, such as saving for retirement, agencies should consider how the frequency, presentation, and labeling of benefits, tax credits, and other incentives can more effectively and efficiently promote those actions, with a specific focus on opportunities to use nonfinancial incentives.

The Executive Order also formally establishes the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST), a group of experts in applied behavioral science that translates findings and methods from the social and behavioral sciences into improvements in Federal policies and programs for the benefit of the American people. The SBST is chaired by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and represents a dozen member agencies across the Federal Government, as well as offices within the Executive Office of the President. SBST also receives critical support from the General Services Administration. The Executive Order charges SBST with providing advice and policy guidance to Federal agencies in support of the order….(More)”

(US) Administration Announces New “Smart Cities” Initiative to Help Communities Tackle Local Challenges and Improve City Services

Curated on September 14, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Factsheet from the White House: “Today, the Administration is announcing a new “Smart Cities” Initiative that will invest over $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities tackle key challenges such as reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, fostering economic growth, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the delivery of city services. The new initiative is part of this Administration’s overall commitment to target federal resources to meet local needs and support community-led solutions.

Over the past six years, the Administration has pursued a place-based approach to working with communities as they tackle a wide range of challenges, from investing in infrastructure and filling open technology jobs to bolstering community policing. Advances in science and technology have the potential to accelerate these efforts. An emerging community of civic leaders, data scientists, technologists, and companies are joining forces to build “Smart Cities” – communities that are building an infrastructure to continuously improve the collection, aggregation, and use of data to improve the life of their residents – by harnessing the growing data revolution, low-cost sensors, and research collaborations, and doing so securely to protect safety and privacy.

As part of the initiative, the Administration is announcing:

More than $35 million in new grants and over $10 million in proposed investments to build a research infrastructure for Smart Cities by the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Nearly $70 million in new spending and over $45 million in proposed investments to unlock new solutions in safety, energy, climate preparedness, transportation, health and more, by the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
More than 20 cities participating in major new multi-city collaborations that will help city leaders effectively collaborate with universities and industry.

Today, the Administration is also hosting a White House Smart Cities Forum, coinciding with Smart Cities Week hosted by the Smart Cities Council, to highlight new steps and brainstorm additional ways that science and technology can support municipal efforts.

The Administration’s Smart Cities Initiative will begin with a focus on key strategies:

Creating test beds for “Internet of Things” applications and developing new multi-sector collaborative models: Technological advancements and the diminishing cost of IT infrastructure have created the potential for an “Internet of Things,” a ubiquitous network of connected devices, smart sensors, and big data analytics. The United States has the opportunity to be a global leader in this field, and cities represent strong potential test beds for development and deployment of Internet of Things applications. Successfully deploying these and other new approaches often depends on new regional collaborations among a diverse array of public and private actors, including industry, academia, and various public entities.
Collaborating with the civic tech movement and forging intercity collaborations: There is a growing community of individuals, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits interested in harnessing IT to tackle local problems and work directly with city governments. These efforts can help cities leverage their data to develop new capabilities. Collaborations across communities are likewise indispensable for replicating what works in new places.
Leveraging existing Federal activity: From research on sensor networks and cybersecurity to investments in broadband infrastructure and intelligent transportation systems, the Federal government has an existing portfolio of activities that can provide a strong foundation for a Smart Cities effort.
Pursuing international collaboration: Fifty-four percent of the world’s population live in urban areas. Continued population growth and urbanization will add 2.5 billion people to the world’s urban population by 2050. The associated climate and resource challenges demand innovative approaches. Products and services associated with this market present a significant export opportunity for the U.S., since almost 90 percent of this increase will occur in Africa and Asia.

Complementing this effort, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is examining how a variety of technologies can enhance the future of cities and the quality of life for urban residents. The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program is also announcing the release of a new framework to help coordinate Federal agency investments and outside collaborations that will guide foundational research and accelerate the transition into scalable and replicable Smart City approaches. Finally, the Administration’s growing work in this area is reflected in the Science and Technology Priorities Memo, issued by the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology Policy in preparation for the President’s 2017 budget proposal, which includes a focus on cyber-physical systems and Smart Cities….(More)”

Community-based Participatory Science is Changing the Way Research Happens—and What Happens Next

Curated on September 14, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Judy Robinson at The Equation: “…Whereas in the past the public seemed content to hear about scientific progress from lab-coat-clad researchers on private crusades to advance their field, now people want science to improve their lives directly. They want progress faster, and a more democratic, participatory role in deciding what needs to change and which research questions will fuel a movement for those changes….

Coming Clean is a network of community, state, national and technical organizations focused on environmental health and justice. Often we’ve been at the forefront of community-based participatory science efforts to support healthier environments, less toxic products, and a more just and equitable society: all issues that deeply matter to the non-expert public.

….For instance, with environmental justice advocacy organizations in the lead, residents of low-income, minority communities collected products at neighborhood dollar stores to see what unnecessary and dangerous chemical exposures could occur as a result of product purchases. In laboratory results we found over 80% of the products tested contained toxic chemicals at potentially hazardous levels (as documented in our report; “A Day Late and a Dollar Short”). That information, along with their organizing around it, has since attracted over 146,700 people to support the nationalCampaign for Healthier Solutions. That’s local science at work.

Documented in Coming Clean’s report; “Warning Signs: Toxic Pollution Identified at Oil and Gas Development Sites” and in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health, 38% of the samples collected by community volunteers contained concentrations of volatile compounds exceeding federal standards for health risks, some at levels thousands of times higher than what federal health and environmental agencies consider to be “safe.” Seven air samples from Wyoming contained hydrogen sulfide at levels between two and 660 times the concentration that is immediately dangerous to human life. Beyond the astonishing numbers, the research helped educate and engage the public on the problem and solutions communities seek, filled critical gaps in our understanding of the threat oil and gas development poses to public health, and was among the reasons cited in Governor Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking in New York State.

For Coming Clean and others across the country, this kind of community-based participatory science is changing the way science is conducted and, most importantly, what comes after the data collection and analysis is complete. In both the dollar store research and the oil and gas science, the effect of the science was to strengthen existing organizing campaigns for community-based solutions. The “good old days” when we waited for scientific proof to change the world are over, if they ever existed. Now science and citizen organizing together are changing the rules of the game, the outcome, and who gets to play….(More)”

How will security attitudes change in the era of the smart city?

Curated on September 10, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Chloe Green at Information Age: “The phrase ‘Cities of the Future’ conjures up so many different images, from the utopia of The Jetsons to the dystopia of Judge Dredd. But one thing that most agree on is the connected nature of our cities, with every aspect of life being connected to the internet, machines communicating with machines and with us.

….

Connected cities, also called smart cities, are one aspect of the Internet of Things. Smart cities are where services use technology to be more efficient and cost-effective, from traffic and transport systems to waste management to energy and healthcare…. – with these technological advances come big concerns. Specifically these concerns revolve around data and its protection.

A connected city will be generating huge quantities of data, which will be shared from machine to machine and department to department. That’s a lot of data to target, and a lot of attack vectors to get at it.

And, as this article on Dark Reading points out, those attack vectors include the sensors themselves, which can be hacked and used to feed fake data into the system. This can result in transport systems being shut down, for example. In a big city that is a quick route to total mayhem….

Hiding the data away on an internal network won’t work, in fact that goes against the very idea of a smart city, where data sharing is the norm. The problem is, many of the companies producing hardware and software for smart cities are not experts in cyber security and so it’s often an after-thought. There is also a startling lack of standards in the smart city industry at the moment.

That is slowly changing though; Securing Smart Cities is a non-profit organisation made up of cyber security companies such as Kaspersky Lab, research bodies such as IOActive and industry bodies like the Cloud Security Alliance.

Similarly, there have been calls for smart cities to have a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) on standby in case of a cyber attack against the infrastructure.

But in some ways new security threats posed by smart cities are not too different from what we’ve seen with the emergence of mobile and cloud computing. What’s changed is the perimeter of the network; it’s no longer contained to a data centre. The same rules that apply here could well apply to smart cities.

Access management will play a big role in securing smart cities; ensuring only the right people (or devices) from the right location can interact with each other can help to keep the bad guys out.

From encryption to DDoS mitigation to intelligent traffic management, there are systems that can be put in place to secure the data that smart cities and the IoT need to be truly effective…..(More)

Civic engagement platform brings the town meeting online

Curated on September 9, 2015October 10, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “Citizens may have the ability to express enthusiasm or disgust for government policies online, but these opinions are only as valuable as the ears they reach. We recently saw Balancing Act offer citizens the ability to view and play around with their city’s budget, providing governments with a better understanding of the wants and needs of their constituents. Now, CitizenLab is another civic engagement platform, which is bringing the town meeting into the digital age — providing a space for citizens to communicate with their government, and for governments to ‘citizensource’ opinions on their policies.

citizenlab

To begin, participants visit the platform and enter their city. This will take them to a collection of ‘labs’ — categories such as education, health and public spaces. They can then post new ideas, join existing conversations and upvote interesting topics. Local governments can then use the platform as a resource to discover the priorities of its citizens. They can respond directly to discussions and consult the public opinion on important issues. Governments can also acknowledge the most vital issues raised by taking them to city council for discussion. The platform is designed to host positive ideas, rather than raise issues.

Website: www.citizenlab.co“

5 tech trends that will transform governments

Curated on September 8, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Zac Bookman at the World Economic Forum: “…The public sector today looks a bit like the consumer industry of 1995 and the enterprise space in 2005: it is at the beginning of a large-scale digital metamorphosis. The net result will be years of saved time, better decisions and stronger communities.

Here are five trends that will define this transformation in the coming decade:

Real-time operations

Many industries in the global economy already operate in real time. ….

Governments are different. They often access accurate data only on a monthly or quarterly basis, even though they make critical decisions every day. This will change with software deployments that help governments unleash and use current data to make more informed decisions about how they can allocate public resources effectively.

Smarter cities

Studies on human migration patterns indicate that more people are moving to cities. By 2025, an estimated 60% of the world’s population will live in an urban centre. High rates of urbanization will force cities to use their existing resources more efficiently. Networked infrastructures – including roads, phone lines, cable networks, satellites and the internet – will be important parts of the solution to this challenge….For example, MIT and Copenhagen recently collaborated on an electric-hybrid bike wheel that monitors pollution, road conditions and traffic. The wheel allows cities to monitor their environments at a level that was previously unfeasible with cheap sensors and manual labour, offering a quantum leap in networking capability without using further human or capital resources.

Increased citizen engagement

Smart networks are wonderful things, but cities need to guard themselves against making efficiency a sacred cow. There is inherent tension between the ideals of democracy and efficiency, between the openness of platforms that encourage engagement and centralized systems. Rather than focus solely on making everything smart, cities will have to focus on slowing down and improving the quality of life.

These considerations will cause cities to increase citizen engagement. Transparency is a subset of this goal. Open data platforms, such as data.gov and data.gov.uk, host troves of machine-readable government information that allow communities to target and solve problems for which governments do not have the bandwidth. Crowdfunding platforms, such as neighbor.ly, allow citizens to participate in the civic process by enabling them to invest in local capital projects. These types of civic tech platforms will continue to grow, and they will be vital to the health of future democracies.

21st-century reporting software for governments

The information technology that powers government is notoriously antiquated. …

New reporting technology, such as the system from OpenGov, will automatically pull and display data from governments’ accounting systems. These capabilities empower employees to find information in seconds that would have previously taken hours, days or even weeks to find. They will expand inter-departmental collaboration on core functions, such as budgeting. And they will also allow governments to compare themselves with other governments. In the next decade, advanced reporting software will save billions of dollars by streamlining processes, improving decisions and offering intelligent insights across the expenditure spectrum.

Inter-governmental communication

The internet was conceived as a knowledge-sharing platform. Over the past few decades, technologists have developed tools such as Google and Wikipedia to aid the flow of information on the web and enable ever greater knowledge sharing. Today, you can find nearly any piece of information in a matter of seconds. Governments, however, have not benefited from the rapid development of such tools for their industry, and most information sharing still occurs offline, over email, or on small chat forums. Tools designed specifically for government data will allow governments to embrace the inherent knowledge-sharing infrastructure of the internet….(More)”

Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape

Curated on September 8, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jonathan Gray at Open Knowledge: “We’re pleased to announce a new report, “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape” undertaken as a collaboration between Open Knowledge, the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency and the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam.

The report offers an unprecedented empirical mapping and analysis of the emerging issue of open budget data, which has appeared as ideals from the open data movement have begun to gain traction amongst advocates and practitioners of financial transparency.

In the report we chart the definitions, best practices, actors, issues and initiatives associated with the emerging issue of open budget data in different forms of digital media.

In doing so, our objective is to enable practitioners – in particular civil society organisations, intergovernmental organisations, governments, multilaterals and funders – to navigate this developing field and to identify trends, gaps and opportunities for supporting it.

How public money is collected and distributed is one of the most pressing political questions of our time, influencing the health, well-being and prospects of billions of people. Decisions about fiscal policy affect everyone-determining everything from the resourcing of essential public services, to the capacity of public institutions to take action on global challenges such as poverty, inequality or climate change.

Digital technologies have the potential to transform the way that information about public money is organised, circulated and utilised in society, which in turn could shape the character of public debate, democratic engagement, governmental accountability and public participation in decision-making about public funds. Data could play a vital role in tackling the democratic deficit in fiscal policy and in supporting better outcomes for citizens….(More)”

Our World in Data

Curated on September 7, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

“Life around the world is changing rapidly – here you find the data visualizations that show you how. Poverty, violence, health, education, the environment and much more. Our World In Data covers a wide range of topics and visualizes the empirical evidence of how living standards changed over the last decades, centuries, and millennia. A web publication authored by Max Roser. (work in progress)”

How Startups Are Transforming the Smart City Movement

Curated on September 7, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jason Shueh at GovTech: “Remember the 1990s visions of the future? Those first incantations of the sweeping “smart city,” so technologically utopian and Tomorrowland-ish in design? The concept and solutions were pitched by tech titans like IBM and Cisco, cost obscene amounts of money, and promised equally outlandish levels of innovation.

It was a drive — as idealistic as it was expedient — to spark a new industry that infused cities with data, analytics, sensors and clean energy. Two-and-a-half decades later, the smart city market has evolved. Its solutions are more pragmatic and its benefits more potent. Evidence brims inSingapore, where officials boast that they can predict traffic congestion an hour in advance with 90 percent accuracy. Similarly, in Chicago, the city has embraced analytics to estimate rodent infestations and prioritizerestaurant inspections. These of course are a few standouts, but as many know, the movement is highly diverse and runs its fingers through cities and across continents.

And yet what’s not as well-known is what’s happened in the last few years. The industry appears to be undergoing another metamorphosis, one that takes the ingenuity inspired by its beginnings and reimagines it with the help of do-it-yourself entrepreneurs….

Asked for a definition, Abrahamson centered his interpretation on tech that enhances quality of life. With the possible exception of health care, finance and education — systems large enough to merit their own categories, Abrahamson explains smart cities by highlighting investment areas at Urban.us. Specific areas are packaged as follows:

Mobility and Logistics: How cities move people and things to, from and within cities.

Built Environment: The public and private spaces in which citizens work and live.

Utilities: Critical resources including water, waste and energy.

Service Delivery: How local governments provide services ranging from public works to law enforcement….

Who’s Investing?

….Here is a sampling of a few types, with examples of their startup investments.

General Venture Capitalists

a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) – Mapillary and Moovit

Specialty Venture Capitalists

Fontinalis – Lyft, ParkMe, LocoMobi

Black Coral Capital – Digital Lumens, Clean Energy Collective, newterra

Govtech Fund – AmigoCloud, Mark43, MindMixer