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| Model Innovations |
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Posted by: digital.health.empowerment - 10-06-2025, 01:04 AM - Forum: Digital Personal Health Monitoring
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I’m in favor of working out model solutions for use of resources available for the purpose of supporting healthcare initiatives because this allows one to evaluate by comparison those proposed for governmental policy or those available currently from private companies. If one can develop model technology designs, and policies for deploying or implementing them, and you have the metrics to establish the value they could deliver, then you can compare these to others to find the roadblocks in government or the inertia in private business that keep optimal solutions from happening. Private business always experiences inertia because of the weight of their prior investments in particular product and service design and delivery strategies. There is also a considerable amount of ego investment on their part of the managers of both private and public organizations, so no matter how good your model product or service is, it will receive no support or resources from existing organizations if it’s mere existence is too critical of their accomplishments.
The strategy that will likely succeed therefore is an iterative one implementing AI to enhance existing intelligence producing and decision making workflows, keeping those in charge responsible through transparency and accountability of the technology. This is in fact how business and governments are proceeding, with proper caution, and making reasonable efforts to develop and maintain ethical standards. The big new innovation is likely not to occur in existing businesses, nor in bureaucratic government agencies, but rather in a funded startup that forward thinking investors place faith in. This fails far more often than it succeeds, but I think this is where to look for real bake-from-scratch model based innovation which will drive change through public education respecting what is possible and, thereby, through competition with existing means of health value delivery.
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| Under utilization of the potential of AI applied to health data warehouses |
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Posted by: digital.health.empowerment - 10-01-2025, 06:55 PM - Forum: Artificial Intelligence in Health
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Written and posted October 1, 2025:
I was unaware of the existence of health data warehouses and the development of big data sources supporting healthcare and health policy designs when I started my Population Health course at CSU Global in the M.S. in Information Technology Project Management degree in August of 2025. I was aware of the emerging deployment of artificial intelligence components and platforms through coursework I did at American Public University in my last term there during the first half of 2024 (B.S. in Health Sciences), and have since been working with various LLM based chat services for research and educating myself through various online means regarding the history of AI and the current implementations of it in ordinary business operations, IT security, and forensics generally. The application of AI to big data sources is a new development in healthcare and elsewhere, although Palantir’s projects privatizing the Federal Government’s “total situational awareness” initiative in response to the 9/11 attack has been in development for two decades now. Being a national security initiative, publication concerning it has been severely limited, making it difficult for researchers and the public to scrutinize its capabilities or the uses to which it is put. The potential of such a diverse and integrated warehouse of information on individuals and groups, including health relevant data, combined with the potential of AI to analyze behavior patterns, creates potential for social good in health policy design on the order of a “God’s eye view.” So far, I have not seen any productive application of Palantir’s capabilities to this problem, although there are state level initiatives which integrate health data into warehouses for study and policy design which are somewhat effective.
This is a serious under utilization of the potential of AI applied to health data warehouses, implying reluctance on the part of those in possession and control of them to apply their capabilities to producing analyses which are outside of current norms or organizational structure justifications. Given the political grid lock the U.S. has been experiencing for the past couple of decades, it is likely more productive to look to developments in other countries for examples of productive and ideologically unhindered implementations. If Congress passed a law requiring that only the most reliable and powerful information technology reasonably available be used for policy related analysis, expressing standards for use in its acquisition, deployment, and field evaluation, then progress would be mandated. To my knowledge, no such requirement has been proposed, leaving the necessary competence of private industry in the thought leadership role. Other than through the usual and somewhat structured market forces, this category of authority remains unaccountable except as expressly regulated by law. The result is under utilization of powerful new technology by organizations which can be held to the ethical standards necessary for healthcare and health promotion in populations.
This is one problem that this organization attempts to solve through express adoption of IEEE’s Code of Software Ethics for Software Engineers, published at https://www.computer.org/education/code-of-ethics. With strict adherence to these ethical standards, we can bring the power of the health data warehouse to the customer to support them in their health journey.
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| The Admin's Location |
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Posted by: digital.health.empowerment - 09-30-2025, 09:51 PM - Forum: Location
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My name is Keith Watson an I'm the administrator of this website / bulletin board.
I am currently located / residing in the Brownsville, TX area.
I invite locals to chat and perhaps meet to discuss.
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| The Organization's Default Ethics Code |
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Posted by: digital.health.empowerment - 09-30-2025, 06:05 PM - Forum: Adopting an Official Code of Ethics
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This could be adopted with a discussion of how profits above security and profits and power overriding respect for the user, as general operating principles, have corrupted wholesale the profession and business of information technology development.
Official adoption of an ethics code written decades ago while the industry can make no such claim of ethical standards makes the organization legally accountable and works to inspire user, developer, contributor, ... confidence.
The one that I am adopting as the default prior to any discussion of the issue is that published at this URL:
https://www.computer.org/education/code-of-ethics
It is the IEEE Computer Society's official Code of Ethics.
Here's the preamble:
"The short version of the code summarizes aspirations at a high level of the abstraction; the clauses that are included in the full version give examples and details of how these aspirations change the way we act as software engineering professionals. Without the aspirations, the details can become legalistic and tedious; without the details, the aspirations can become high-sounding but empty; together, the aspirations and the details form a cohesive code.
"Software engineers shall commit themselves to making the analysis, specification, design, development, testing and maintenance of software a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with their commitment to the health, safety and welfare of the public, software engineers shall adhere to the following Eight Principles:
Quote:1. PUBLIC – Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER – Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest.
3. PRODUCT – Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.
4. JUDGMENT – Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.
5. MANAGEMENT – Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.
6. PROFESSION – Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
7. COLLEAGUES – Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.
8. SELF – Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession."
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| Social Networking for Health |
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Posted by: digital.health.empowerment - 09-30-2025, 05:08 PM - Forum: Social Media Component
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Social Networking for Health
G. Keith Watson
Colorado State University Global
HCM 505: Principles of Population Health
Instructor: Mark Hutchinson
Due September 28 , 2025
Social Networking for Health
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, and many others with various formats and business models, all have one characteristic in common. They make possible the widespread dissemination of information provided by both members and advertisers of various stripes to potentially interested users. The information can be personal regarding the member or it can be commercial free speech, but the ones most relevant to public health and engagement of individuals in their own healthcare challenges and goals is that from authoritative government and nonprofit healthcare sources. It is possible also for interested commercial organizations to contribute to this stream, such as could be done by companies promoting their fitness applications or fitness coaching or consultation services. One major issue is that the platforms with the most commercial success themselves implement business models that control the connections between users of various kinds through engagement driving algorithms, limiting the utility for targeting effective messages and information to those who would likely benefit most from them. These companies are considered the winners in the social media technology competition merely because they have the highest market capitalization, meaning they provide the most value to passive investors who need no other interest in the company than the profit they can derive. Because they are the business winners, their platforms are considered the normal and inevitable technology design and therefore an example that should be followed by all others. This is unfortunate since it draws material and human capital, public attention, and potential healthcare information source users away from more effective designs which can deliver targeted value using the same surveillance methods and artificial intelligence applied to the data collected.
Consider the potential healthcare applications of social media. It could include user search and discovery features making finding of potentially helpful healthcare information possible, which in turn can lead to discovery and research on the providers which can provide the services or products referenced in the content. If like Wikipedia no paid advertising is allowed, but rather matching is done through express user interest analysis, provider organizations can still be required to subscribe as providers to receive interested user references. Raising basic awareness about prevalent health issues and respecting unhealthy behaviors and positive improvements in targetable communities is one type of proactive intervention activity that can be designed and implemented once enough user search and voluntary content engagement activity can be analyzed. The usual social media platform completely lacks this potential. From this information, support networks of users with similar issues can be constructed virtually and provider organizations can be allowed to insert information respecting their services into the content flows of such, again for a reasonable subscription fee. Early disease detection and prevention can be facilitated through both structured and unstructured information gathering, again from actual user interest derived from their search activity. There are already diagnostic questionnaires online, presumably based on standard diagnostic flow charts, and the same concept can be implemented in a more personalized way backed by artificial intelligence supplemented with the search and other interest evidence provided by the user. This could easily be implemented as a chat service.
Some of the usual negative impacts associated with social media platforms, such as the well known issue of algorithmic promotion of engaging misinformation and disinformation, regarding healthcare and health impacting behaviors in particular, can be entirely eliminated provided we have the user’s permission to analyze their contributed content with healthcare science trained large language model technology. This term of use would have to be expressly checked off by each user up front to avoid the loss of trust that would inevitably occur later otherwise. Cyberbullying and harassment are easily discovered even in a massively popular user base using the same AI technology. Within virtual support groups, there is likely to be a lot of very personal information exchanged, so access may have to be controlled for some and security and privacy will have to enforced rigorously. Guaranteeing up front that the user’s information will not be sold or provided to any other party or organization except in ways that they expressly authorize would be another term of service that the user would check off on before using the platform. Further, because the user is in a secure, protected support environment which is focused on their particular health issues, the likelihood of competition through social comparison is mitigated if not eliminated.
Much of this could be accomplished with current social media platforms if they modified their designs to include such features for the purpose of contributing to the public good. Their opinions of themselves include the assertion that simply connecting people with engagement driving algorithms is such a tremendous contribution to civilization that they are already inherently great contributors to social change for the better. When seen in the cold light of day, their designs are entirely controlling of user attention in a way which deliberately promotes engagement with the most motivating material, rather than that which is the most beneficial or useful to the particular user. This works to the advantage of their paid advertisers, making the social media companies huge profits and giving them massive and frequently disruptive social power. This is marketed implicitly as a great revolt against the previous organization of information delivery from the top through TV and radio (The revolution will not be televised). Improvements are therefore not planned, so there is a huge market for better designs, the chief obstacle being complacent acceptance of the current normal in social evolution, for profit social monitoring and algorithm driven association.
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