At the end of December 2019, a medical team made a remarkable discovery using a combination of Baidu search data and satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan, China. They identified an unusual increase in searches for terms related to respiratory symptoms, as well as a surge in the number of cars parked at hospitals in the area. These findings, through an application called HealthMap, were the earliest indicators of the outbreak of COVID-19, providing critical insights that would ultimately inform the global response to the pandemic. Today on The Beat, recorded at ViVE 2023, Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Gautam Gulati sit down with John Brownstein, the creator of HealthMap, to discuss the potential of tech to improve healthcare and tackle the challenges we face during crises like the pandemic. John Brownstein is a Yale-trained epidemiologist who is a professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School and the Chief Innovation Officer of Boston Children's Hospital. He also co-founded two digital health companies, Epidemico and Circulation Inc. and is the founder of multiple global public health surveillance systems. His creation of HealthMap, the electronic surveillance system which alerts communities of outbreaks, is utilized by public health professionals worldwide. John discusses HealthMap and Outbreaks Near Me, a crowdsourcing platform that collects data about symptoms, disease outcomes, and vaccine confidence. He also walks us through his insight into the successes and failures of the pandemic response. Listen in as John shares the challenges and opportunities facing healthcare providers in the post-pandemic world and how cutting-edge research and development is helping them prepare for what's to come while shaping the future of medicine.
Topics Covered
Connect with John Brownstein
Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd
Resources