ACM Keynote: New Ways of Thinking of the Mobile Phone for Healthcare and the Current Pandemic

Much of the fundamental research in computer science has been driven by the needs of those attempting to utilize computing for various applications, such as health. Shwetak Patel will describe a collection of research projects conducted with his clinical collaborators that leverage the sensors on mobile devices (e.g., microphones, cameras, accelerometers, etc) in new ways to enable the screening, self-management and longitudinal study of diseases. These projects follow the theme of finding unique signals and biomarkers in order to enable access and scale by leveraging existing hardware. His remarks will underscore the potential advances in health and clinical science through the convergence of sensing, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. He will also address how some of this work is being applied to the current COVID pandemic.

ACM keynote Timeline & Summary

[Opening]
· 0:00:00 – looping welcome slides
· 0:01:58 – ITU welcomes the audience
· 0:04:43 – Moderator Yannis Loannidis explains about the keynote topic and introduces Shwetak Patel

[Keynote presentation]
· 0:06:29 – Shwetak Patel explains about his presentation on “New Ways of Thinking of the Mobile Phone for Healthcare & the Current Pandemic”
· 0:08:01 – Quick Research overview
· 0:10:19 – Personal Health Monitoring
· 0:11:45 – Why are computer scientists doing so much healthcare work?
· 0:13:12 – Paradigm shifts in health
· 0:15:14 – Point of care diagnostics
· 0:16:14 – Another paradigm shift in health care
· 0:17:32 – Plethora of wearable technology
· 0:18:07 – Opportunities with mobile health
· 0:20:07 – Continuous measurements
· 0:21:21 – Important role of mobile phone in healthcare space
· 0:21:53 – The modern smartphone
· 0:22:57 – Mobile health sensing
· 0:24:00 – Using mobile phones for diagnostics
· 0:24:55 – Measuring lung function
· 0:27:43 – SpiroSmart: Mobile phone Spirometer
· 0:36:20 – Detecting and studying cough
· 0:37:51 – Sound analysis from microphones
· 0:39:49 – Studying tuberculosis
· 0:40:54 – TB study in South Africa
· 0:43:17 – Cough identification
· 0:44:18 – Cough monitoring for COVID
· 0:45:49 – BiliCam: Using Mobile Phones to Monitor Newborn Jaundice
· 0:52:52 – Bilirubin in adults: Pancreatic cancer
· 0:53:35 – Observable Jaundice in the Sclera
· 0:54:41 – Mobile phone hemoglobin
· 0:58:18 – Clinical evaluation
· 0:58:42 – Peru Deployment
· 1:00:00 – Monitoring fever
· 1:02:57 – Interpreting Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs)
· 1:04:27 – OsteoApp
· 1:07:58 – Considerations in mobile health

[Q&A session]
· 1:14:12 – Yannis moderates Q&A session
· 1:14:25 – How do we deal with privacy?
· 1:17:07 – Which level of accuracy is required and what has been achieved so far?
· 1:20:38 – Is there a solution for device equity?
· 1:23:43 – How do these technologies reach healthcare providers?
· 1:26:39 – How do we detect and prevent diseases early with these technologies?
· 1:36:46 – Video ends

Speakers, Panelists and Moderators

SHWETAK PATEL Professor in Computer Science & Engineering, ACM Prize in Computing
University of Washington

SHWETAK PATEL

Professor in Computer Science & Engineering, ACM Prize in Computing

University of Washington

Shwetak is currently the Washington Research Foundation Endowed Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington, where he directs the Ubicomp Lab. Concurrently, he is also a Director of Health Technologies at Google. His research is in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, and Sensor-Enabled Embedded Systems, with a particular emphasis on the application of computing to health, sustainability, and interaction. Shwetak received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 2008. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Sloan Fellowship, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, MIT TR-35 Award, World Economic Forum Young Global Scientist Award, NSF Career Award, Presidential PECASE award, and the ACM Prize in Computing. He is also an ACM Fellow. Shwetak a co-founder of an home energy monitoring company called Zensi (acquired by Belkin in 2010), a low-power home wireless sensing company called SNUPI Technologies (acquired by Sears in 2015), and a mobile health company called Senosis Health (acquired by Google in 2017).
YANNIS IOANNIDIS President & General Director
Athena Research and Innovation Center

YANNIS IOANNIDIS

President & General Director

Athena Research and Innovation Center

Yannis Ioannidis (UC Berkeley PhD, 1986) is the President & General Director of the ATHENA Research and Innovation Center and a Professor at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the University of Athens. His research work focuses on Database and Information Systems, Data Science, Data and Text Analytics, Scalable Data Processing, Data Infrastructures and Digital Repositories, and Recommender Systems and Personalization. He is the coordinator of several European and national projects, including OpenAIRE, which implements the European policy for open access to publications and data. His work is often inspired by and applied to data management and analysis problems that arise in industrial environments or in the context of other scientific fields (Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Biodiversity, Cultural Heritage). Yannis Ioannidis is an ACM and IEEE Fellow, a member of Academia Europaea, a recipient of the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award and of several research and teaching awards, including the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award. He has just finished serving as the ACM Secretary Treasurer but remains a member of the ACM Europe Council. He is also vice-chair of ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures).