What? Epitrend is a statistical tool developed by Spectronic Medical and implemented in a collaboration between the City of Helsingborg, Spectronic Medical, Wihlborgs and Get AI.
Why? By measuring and paying attention to trends in body temperature in large groups of people, it will be possible to create a better basis for decision-making for health-promoting initiatives. For example, we can get early indications of when the flu season begins and make estimates of how long it looks to be.
How? With the help of sensors that estimate body temperature at a distance and AI that analyzes data, we can measure trends of elevated body temperature in large groups of people. Because fever is considered an early and relatively safe sign of incipient or ongoing infectious disease, these statistics may warn of future epidemics in society. The statistics can also be used to compare public health locally with other parts of the country. No personal data is stored because the data processing takes place in the sensor itself. The tool can thus not be used to retrieve information about individuals' body temperature, only trends in society. This is an innovation pilot that is being tested at Helsingborg C. If the pilot project gives good results, sensors can be used in other places in the city.
Graph source: https://helsingborg.epitrend.net
FAQ: https://j.mp/epitrend-faq
Objectives: Higher quality in decision-making around the city's epidemic management
Based on the challenge: ”How do we detect future health problems faster?”
Source: https://innovation.helsingborg.se/initiativ/okad-folkhalsa-med-hjalp-av-ai/
JJ comments: Working with other sensors and other datasources, how could this be done in a truly effective way, on scale. What indicators could signal a decline in public health, how can they be combined together, and how can they be used for good? And where can I deposit my data, from all my sensors, and donate them for public use? It's important to note that nothing here is on an individual level. It's all about the population.
The AIBC team: Ariel Shaka Daniel Myrtenblad Maria Hellsen (client lead) Filip Akerlund
The HBG team: Jakob Jansson ****Andreas Postel Joakim Jardenberg
What we need is a public health monitoring system. This would collect peoples health data, from different sources, in real time, and notify authorities when there are signs of a pandemic coming. It will give us a choice on how to react and what to do about it. For example avoiding public spaces, taking extra precautions when going out and restricting travel if needed.)
Problem is that there is no system to gather all these signals and predict an epidemic outbreak before it reaches a greater number of citizens.
Status: we have been mapping the ecosystem of syndromic surveillance in Sweden. Right now we are collecting data (which is a challenge) to scale down to three sources to prove our hypotheses.
Team need: we need more knowledge & tools on data collection and creating synthetic data, data normalisation plan, system of system design, which will be suitable for all the stakeholders (public and private organisations).