GigaOM » Aneesh Chopra

Healthcare needs a big data infusion

Stacey Higginbotham — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:59:24 +0000

Aneesh Chopra

To improve medicine and health IT, we need a big heaping dose of data. That’s the takeaway from a conversation with Aneesh Chopra, the former U.S. CTO and assistant to President Obama, at South by Southwest in Austin on Friday.

“Today’s healthcare information is locked away in a document — a person’s medical records — but how do you parse those documents?” Chopra asked. “The data architecture is wrong. The architecture should be built on data.”

Much as LinkedIn has managed to turn the resume from a document into many pieces of data that can be then searched, parsed and aggregated in new ways, a patient’s medical record should have that same granularity. And it will, in Chopra’s worldview. Chopra is now a senior advisor for healthcare strategy at The Advisory Board Company, which is focused on bringing the advances of technology to the medical realm.

Who will drive the healthcare IT change?

This will involve the government (some legislation has already been put in place), doctors, hospitals and consumers. However, in what will be a switch for many Valley startups, Chopra believes that the consumer is not going to be the big player in this transition. He scoffed at the idea of an empowered consumer who, armed with his medical data and treatment plans, assiduously follows through on everything asked of him.

Instead, it will be doctors and large caregiving organizations that help drive the adoption of healthcare IT. They, in turn, will be driven by monetary incentives that the government has written into laws. And there are still plenty of laws that will have to be written, such as those around privacy, which Chopra said is “the most important risk factor facing the industry.”

The opportunity for startups

Without getting too far into theories of privacy or the morass of government legislation already passed, here is Chopra’s advice to entrepreneurs who want to get involved in health IT on the ground floor.

Introduce the consumer to his or her blue button: Even though the consumer isn’t going to play a huge role, Chopra believes app makers who can get consumers to download their own health data (in a manner similar to how veterans can download their service records in an open data format through a Blue Button) can find a niche. Once users connect their health data to some of their quantified health data or their food diaries or whatever they want, certain startups will have an opportunity.
Get certified to make a change: Thanks to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, doctors can get paid for adopting technology, but in order to get paid, they have to both buy new tech and prove they use it meaningfully. This so-called “meaningful use” certification is managed by private companies, but startups or anyone can get certified in only a few areas, making it less daunting and expensive. Chopra was really excited about the modularity of the program, which allows developers to build apps for doctors that can be added on to existing software. The program will also help larger companies partner with startups. In 2011, the government paid out $2.5 billion in meaningful-use incentives, and 176,000 companies were certified.
Read this article and reverse engineer the apps this guy built: No, really — that’s it. Because data is going to be a huge portion of individual medical records, and because the government is opening up other medical records, figuring out ways to mash those together to help reduce costs in the system will be immensely valuable. This is especially true because the government has passed legislation rewarding doctors who cut costs — as opposed to rewarding doctors who order expensive tests.

Finally, Chopra’s pretty dismissive of the idea that the Food and Drug Administration is a huge barrier for most startups trying to build innovative apps and even devices, such as the toothbrush I profiled last month. He pointed out that the FDA has brought several entrepreneurs in house to help it improve, and it has so far been taking a very light stance on apps as it attempts to understand what role they will play in medicine.

And if you don’t have an idea for the next hot startup, don’t worry. He’s pretty sure that in the coming years doctors are going to also need specialists who can help them deal with data, organize it and analyze it. Yup, that’s right — it’s yet another profession where data scientists will be in demand. Gotta go get that stats degree.

For more on the ways big data is changing the world, come to our Structure:Data event in New York on March 21 and 22.

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Hacking solutions to the world’s resource problem

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:10:53 +0000

This weekend in New York City, dozens of developers gathered together for the second Cleanweb Hackathon, where programmers spent the entire weekend building mobile and web apps around new ways to manage energy, water, food and fuel. As Sunil Paul, the founder of the event and a partner with Spring Ventures, put it in a short talk on Sunday afternoon, the idea behind the project is that “Information technology is the most powerful lever we have to address resource constraints.”

Over the weekend, the Cleanweb hackers created applications like NYC BLDGS, a web data base of the energy consumption of buildings in New York that pits the best and worst buildings against each other in friendly competition. Econofy, a web site created over the weekend that enables consumers to compare the energy consumption of appliances, won both the audience choice award and the judges’ award for best overall hack.

The first Cleanweb Hackathon was held in San Francisco in September of last year, and the New York event this weekend was a slightly more high-profile affair. Judges of the hacks included investor Fred Wilson and Rachel Sterne, New York City’s chief digital officer. United States Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra made an appearance as a special guest.

The event is the latest sign the ecosystem around clean technology is changing. As investors look back at the mistakes that have been made and money lost in capital-intensive investments like next-gen solar, biofuels and electric cars, some investors are taking a different route and looking to make cleantech investing look a lot more like web and mobile investing — literally. Paul’s firm Spring Ventures invests in Cleanweb companies like Solar Mosaic.

The Cleanweb is an attractive way to attack the problem of climate change and resource management for an age of 9 billion people. Information technologies are available now — compared to the science experiments in biofuels and parts of clean power — and thanks to Moore’s Law they are cheap, and will get increasingly cheaper. Now it’s time to tap into the innovation of the developer community to try to create new ways to leverage IT to solve the world’s problems.

Check out the video of the event below and Paul’s explanation of the Cleanweb at our Green:Net 2011 event:

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Get ready for the Cleanweb Hackathon NYC!

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:11:36 +0000

We live streamed the first Cleanweb Hackathon event in San Francisco last September, and now we’re very excited that once again we’ll be live streaming the second Cleanweb Hackathon that will be held in New York City, this weekend! The “Cleanweb” is the trend of using information technology — software, the web, social media, mobile — to address resource constraints around energy, food and water.

The Cleanweb Hackathon NYC will kick off this Friday night (Jan. 20) at the Tisch School of the Arts Interactive, starting off with developers, UI experts and business folks coming together to make teams around hack ideas. Over the weekend. the teams will create their mobile or web innovation — complete with pizza and beer of course. We won’t be live streaming all that, but on Sunday afternoon, the teams will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, and we’ll bring you live video from the pitches and judges.

Judges for the event include Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, and NYC Chief Digital Officer Rachel Stern. A special guest will include United States Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra (who just kicked off the Green Button initiative in the Valley).

Check out all the APIs and datasets they’ve pulled together for you aspiring do-gooder developers. And here’s the wrapup and video from the first event.

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The Green Button project launches to unleash energy data

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:00:34 +0000

The potential of open access to energy data has drawn U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra to the West Coast. On Wednesday morning Chopra and half a dozen utilities plan to announce the official launch of the Green Button initiative at an event in Santa Clara, Calif., which will enable utility customers to easily download their energy consumption data with one click in an easy-to-read format on utilities’ and third parties’ websites.

California utilities PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric will announce on Wednesday that the feature is available now, presumably via a green button on the utilities’ websites. Other utilities including Southern California Edison, Glendale Power & Light, Oncor and Pepco Holdings will announce that they will offer the feature later this year.

The project is important because it is a broad-based plan to take energy data and standardize the format of it, open it up (while also providing security) and make it readily available to consumers. Data is commonly treated this way on the Internet, but for other sectors, open access to data isn’t as prevalent.

Standardizing and freeing the data can create an ecosystem for developers to use that data to create apps that can deliver new services and products. The Internet has thrived because of open data and standardized information systems. Delivering that energy data directly back to consumers is also important because it can lead to energy-efficiency measures and can help change a consumers’ energy-consumption behavior.

Chopra first introduced the idea of the Green Button initiative back in Sept. 2011 and challenged the utility sector to quickly work at offering customers standardized and easy access to their own energy information.

California utilities are moving first on this partly because last year the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered the state’s big three utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — to follow its proposed ruling on privacy, security and access to energy data. That meant offering up consumers easy and secure access to their data.

A score of startups, utilities and government officials will be at the event on Wednesday looking to discuss the implications of energy data.

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White House to Launch New Smart Grid Initiatives

Katie Fehrenbacher — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 23:08:42 +0000

Updated: Here’s the details on the new smart grid programs.

On Monday morning the White House plans to hold an event focused on the smart grid that will discuss both new private and public initiatives for how to implement a smarter power grid. While I don’t know the details of any new programs, officials involved in the announcement will include Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

At the event the White House also plans to release a report written by the National Science and Technology Council on “A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid.” The report will look at smart grid technology, how IT can reduce the need for new power plants and can deal with power outages, and how to integrate clean power and electric vehicles into the grid.

The event, which takes place 7AM to 830AM PT, will be welcome attention for the smart grid from the U.S. federal government, now that the stimulus package funds for the smart grid have been allocated and are being spent. Utilities have expressed concerns that one of the biggest impediments to the deployment of the smart grid in the U.S. is that after the stimulus funding is gone, there has been great uncertainty about funding future smart grid initiatives.

We’ll bring you the news Monday morning!

Image courtesy of james_jhs.

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Cloud Computing: Washington vs. Washington

Om Malik — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:49:39 +0000

[qi:gigaom_icon_cloud-computing] When I spoke with U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra last month, he outlined a pragmatic approach to the federal technology infrastructure that involved wanting to adopt a hybrid model of data centers and cloud computing solutions. Buying infrastructure as a service instead of banking solely on energy-guzzling data centers is a good way to stretch tax dollars, he argued. Kundra’s colleague, Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer of the United States, shares his approach.

And while cloud computing is all the rage in Washington D.C., it seems the state of Washington doesn’t much care for cloud computing. Instead of buying cloud computing services from home-grown cloud computing giant Amazon, (or newly emergent cloud player, Microsoft), the state has opted to build a brand-new, $180 million data center, despite reservations from some state representatives. Microsoft is moving the data center that houses its Azure cloud services to San Antonio, Texas, from Quincy, Wash. — mostly because of unfavorable tax policies. Apparently, the data centers are no longer covered by sales tax rebates — a costly proposition for Microsoft, which plans to spend many millions on new hardware for the Azure-focused data center.

By the way, Washington is the second state that has decided to build its own data center. In June, Massachusetts decided that it was going to build a $100 million data center. The Sox Nation is home to Nick Carr, author of “The Big Switch,” arguably the most influential book on cloud computing and its revolutionary capabilities.

These aforementioned states are examples of a bigger trend: Most large organizations are still hesitant to go all in when it comes to cloud computing. That’s partly because the cloud revolution still has a long way to go. But much of it is fear of the unknown. In a blog post on the web site of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a group representing LA police officers, its members raise doubts about the city’s decision to use Google’s cloud-based services.

The League is very concerned about records being housed on computer networks outside of the city. Our concerns are well-founded and understandable, given that government and corporate computer network breaches have become more prevalent over the past several years. This is a complex technological issue that demands careful study and planning by the city. Before the city introduces an outside entity into the chain of custody, sufficient safeguards need to be in place to secure confidential information.

They are being reasonable in their protest, especially when it comes to sensitive information. Like many technologies before it, cloud computing will have to overcome doubts and challenges before becoming business-as-usual.

(Related from GigaOM Pro, subscription required: If We Compute in the Cloud, We Need a Network Fabric.)

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

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What Should The New U.S. CTO Do?

Om Malik — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:36:30 +0000

President Obama last week appointed Aneesh Chopra, until recently Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, as the CTO of the United States. Unlike Vivek Kundra (now the U.S. CIO) and Cisco Systems CTO Padmasree Warrior, Chopra has a lower profile. Tech-industry insiders, such as inventor Mitch Kapor, venture capitalist John Doerr and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, have hailed his appointment. I’m sure Chopra would make a good CTO, but I don’t envy his job. Given that there are so many chiefs in the Obama administration — science, information, health care, social innovation — I wonder what his real job description will be. I’m looking forward to talking to him soon and finding out more about his agenda. What do you guys think should be at the top of Chopra’s to-do list?

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