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Let’s Meet in the Metaverse

By KIM BELLARD

I really wasn’t expecting to write about the Metaverse again so soon, after discussing it in the context of Roblox last March, which itself followed a look at Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney’s vision for the Metaverse last August.  But darn that Mark Zuckerberg!

Not many noticed when Mr. Zuckerberg told Facebook employees in June that the company would become focused on building a metaverse, but he got some attention when he expanded on his vision for The Verge in late July.  Then last Monday Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s head of AR/VR, confirmed a product group had been formed to bring it about.  And, finally, in an earnings call last Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg and his executive team couldn’t stop gushing about the importance of the metaverse to the company, and the world.

So, yeah, the metaverse is in the news.  And, once again, I worry healthcare is going to be late to the party. 

I won’t go into too much detail about what the metaverse is; for those who want a deep dive, there’s Matthew Ball’s nine part primer, or you could just read Ready Player One.  Mr. Zuckerberg described it to The Verge as follows: “you can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.”  In the earnings call, he clarified: “The defining quality of the metaverse is presence – which is this feeling that you’re really there with another person or in another place.” 

Depending on your age/preferences, the concept of “an embodied internet” is either chilling or thrilling.  Maybe both.   

It’s potentially a big deal.  Gene Marks, writing in Forbes, says, “business interactions will forever change.”  The Conversation’s Beth Daley goes further, stating “creating a virtual world for users to interact with their friends and family is not just a fancy vision, it is a commercial necessity.”

It’s not VR, it’s not AR, it’s not 3D internet, although all those may be part of it.  It’s not gaming, it’s not entertainment, it’s not social network, although all of those will be part of it too.  Mr. Zuckerberg promises: “It’s going to be accessible across all of our different computing platforms; VR and AR, but also PC, and also mobile devices and game consoles.”  Not to overstate it, but he sees the Metaverse as the “next generation of the internet.”  Mr. Zuckerberg also described it as “the next computing platform.”

He is openly telling people that the goal is for Facebook to transition to a metaverse company, “within the next five years or so.”  Analysts on the earnings call pressed Facebook to confirm an estimate of a $5b investment, but only got an admission that, yes, the investment was “billions.”

Significantly, for Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg believes: “this is going to be not something that one company builds alone, but I think it is going to be a whole ecosystem that needs to develop.”   As Mr. Zuckerberg said in The Verge interview, “Hopefully in the future, asking if a company is building a metaverse will sound as ridiculous as asking a company how their internet is going.”

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COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Showcase Event — WEDNESDAY 4pm ET!

After receiving applications from 115 people (across every continent except Antarctica!) and 50 organizations, including 35 academic institutions, the judges have declared DeepOutbreak, a team with members from Georgia Tech, the University of Iowa, and Virginia Tech as the winner of COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge.

Second place was awarded to K&A, a Russia-based team working with the World Bank and the Higher School of Economics. $75,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winners.

The winners and the other three finalists will present their prototypes at the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Showcase on Wednesday, December 16th, from 4-5:30pm ET. Register here!

The program’s distinguished speakers include

  • Dr. Tom Frieden, President & CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies & former director of the CDC
  • Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy
  • Dr. Farzad Mostashari, CEO of Aledade & former National Coordinator for Health IT at the Department of Health and Human Services, and
  • Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook’s Head of Health.

Chrissy Farr, Principal and Health-Tech Lead at OMERS Ventures and former technology and health reporter for CNBC.com, will serve as emcee.

Register for the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Showcase on Wednesday, December 16th, from 4-5:30pm ET here

#COVID19 Symptom Data Challenge

By FARZAD MOSTASHARI & INDU SUBAIYA

Applications for the #COVID19 Symptom Data Challenge close in three weeks! 

Amidst #COVID19, using analytic approaches to maximize available information and data is paramount. Hosted by Margolis Center, sponsored by Facebook Data for Good (@academics), and in partnership with the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, Carnegie Mellon University, and ResolveToSaveLives, the Challenge seeks to analytic approaches that utilize COVID-19 symptom data to develop insights into the trajectory of the novel coronavirus. 

Have a solution? Finalists can win up to $50k and the winning analytic approach will be featured on Facebook’s (@academics) Data For Good website!

Much, much more information is on the Challenge Website. Apply by 11:59:59 pm ET on September 29!

Much more about the Challenge Background in this interview or in this slack channel.

Official rules are here

Farzad Mostashari is CEO of Aledade, former National Coordinator for Health Information technology, and former Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Indu Subaiya is the President at Catalyst @ Health 2.0

The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge Webinar

By INDU SUBAIYA & FARZAD MOSTASHARI

Following the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge on September 1st, we are excited to host a dedicated webinar providing further insights into the Challenge directly from key leaders representing our partner organizations at Facebook Data for Good, the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Joint Program on Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland (UMD), the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, and Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies.

A stellar line up of speakers includes a raft of former government officials Mark McClellan (FDA & CMA), Tom Frieden (CDC), Farzad Mostashari (ONC) and many more, including Johns Hopkins’ Professor Caitlin Rivers, Carnegie Mellon’s Alex Reinhart & Facebook’s Head of Health Kang-Xing Jin.

If you are applying to the Challenge or would like to hear more about experts’ responses to COVID-19 and the importance of data during the pandemic, you do not want to miss this conversation! 

  • We will be discussing the following
    • Shortcomings of the existing tools for COVID-19 surveillance in the US
    • The case for better situational awareness of COVID activity
    • Overview of Symptom Data survey methodology
    • Preliminary analyses relating symptom trends to COVID intensity
    • Goals and operation of the Symptom Data Challenge

Tune in on Tuesday, September 8th at 1-2pm ET!

Event Registration Link: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/6102626394063911951

Indu Subaiya is President of Catalyst @ Health 2.0. Farzad Mostashari is CEO of Aledade and Chair of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge

Announcing The COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge

By FARZAD MOSTASHARI

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, co-founder of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (“Catalyst”) met with Farzad Mostashari, Challenge Chair, to discuss the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge. Indu and Farzad walked 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.

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Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 94 | Healthy.io, Smile Direct Club, and Period Tracking?

On Episode 94 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess asks me about Healthy.io’s $60 million raise for at-home urine testing for kidney diseases, with the NHS on the hook & coming to the US, and Smile Direct Club going public with a $9 billion valuation—but quickly tanked (although to $7 billion). In other news, there’s a period tracker scandal with Maya and MIA Fem apps sharing sensitive data about women’s cycles and sexual activity with Facebook. Find out what Jess & I are looking forward to at Health 2.0 this week as well. See you there! —Matthew Holt

Our Cancer Support Group On Facebook Is Trapped

Our Experience on Facebook Offers Important Insight Into Mark Zuckerberg’s Future Vision For Meaningful Groups

By ANDREA DOWNING

Seven years ago, I was utterly alone and seeking support as I navigated a scary health experience. I had a secret: I was struggling with the prospect of making life-changing decisions after testing positive for a BRCA mutation. I am a Previvor. This was an isolating and difficult experience, but it turned out that I wasn’t alone. I searched online for others like me, and was incredibly thankful that I found a caring community of women who could help me through the painful decisions that I faced.

As I found these women through a Closed Facebook Group, I began to understand that we had a shared identity. I began to find a voice, and understand how my own story fit into a bigger picture in health care and research. Over time, this incredible support group became an important part of my own healing process.

This group was founded by my friends Karen and Teri, and has a truly incredible story. With support from my friends in this group of other cancer previvors and survivors I have found ways to face the decisions and fear that I needed to work through.

Facebook recently had a summit to share that groups are at the heart of their future. We had a summit of our own with some of the amazing leaders within the broader cancer community on social media.

Continue reading…

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 76 | Facebook releasing an EMR? Jim Cramer Going to Epic? #AprilFools

Facebook is releasing an EMR? Jim Cramer is going to work at Epic? April Fools! On today’s actual Health in 2 Point 00 Episode 76, Jess asks me about the follow up from Health Datapalooza, which ended with the government saying they will be changing the world and that everyone should join them in their initiative to innovate digital health. AHRQ & CMMI ran digital health challenges, and CMMI will be doing an AI challenge for $1 million for startups in the space. Speaking of the government, Seema Verma was in the news for her PR spending and as I said “Evil Twin Seema” and “Good Seema” are joined at the hip and they should “not screw around on the PR front”. In other news, MountSinai launched a digital health institute to develop advances in artificial intelligence and other emerging health care technologies spaces. Clover Health laid off a ton of people, and according to me, they are starting to get serious because running a Medicare Advantage plan is hard work — Matthew Holt

SCOOP: Facebook enters EMR business

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by MATTHEW HOLT

Big news out of Mountain View, California today as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social networking giant was going to formally enter the EMR business. Sandberg explained that Facebook already has all Americans and most of the world’s population on its system and that adding a little bit of information about their health would be trivial given that it’s easy with AR to abstract that information from their profiles, not to mention that everyone’s phone is already sending data back to Facebook.

In particular, Sandberg highlighted the fact that Facebook has already captured almost all the personal health information of many people with cancer and plenty of other rare diseases in the thousands of health communities that it has been pushing hard over the past few years. Not only have those individuals not known what Facebook is allowing third parties to do with that data, or which hackers have already stolen it in a SICGRL hack, but they have also found it impossible to extract themselves or their data from those groups. As Sandberg says “We already have the EMR business model down, now we just have to provide the products”

When it was pointed out to Sandberg that Facebook didn’t actually have any professional EMR tools that could be used by clinicians or doctors, a scruffily dressed guy hiding his bad haircut under a hoodie grabbed the mike and shouted “We’ve seen the schlock that Epic, Cerner and the rest put out–my wife has to use it and she spends every evening catching up on her data entry. Shouldn’t be too hard for our engineers to knock that off–just ask those guys at Snapchat.” Sandberg commented that while EMR vendors move slowly and break things, Facebook has shown over the years that it can do that much faster. “Have you seen what we did to American democracy or the EU?”

Later today Cerner stock was trading off 25%. When asked, an Epic spokesperson commented that even if you added their ages together, Sandberg and Zuckerberg were far too young to run a proper EMR company.

Matthew Holt is the Publisher of THCB

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 75 | Rounds & IPOs, Health Datapalooza, & the Facebook Controversy

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I are at 10th annual Health Datapalooza in Washington D.C.! Jess talks to me about Xealth’s $11 million round to develop out its company, and Change Healthcare is applying for a $100 million IPO. The big takeaways from Health Datapalooza are that many people and companies have integrated data into their systems, but they haven’t been able to gain many actionable insights from it. Also, if you haven’t heard of the complaint Andrea Downing, Fred Trotter, and David Harlow wrote to the FTC concerning the privacy and data that can be downloaded from Facebook’s groups, you better check it out. It details out the concern that Facebook is not protecting the data of patients as anyone can download sensitive data from the groups and use it — Matthew Holt