CIDRAP had an interesting story about some Stanford undergraduates who designed a local pandemic flu hotline staffed by home-based volunteers. The idea emerged from a course in innovation and "entrepreneurship." The course was designed to teach students the rudiments of taking an idea of social utility and getting it implemented and they are fairly common. They give students a perspective on the many steps and obstacles between a good idea and a good product in the real world. But I sometimes wonder if they teach the right things.
First the idea:
The classes aim to teach students methods of innovation and the art of social entrepreneurship and to develop their technical, leadership, team, and presentation skills. The student's professor, William Behrman, elected to work on innovations for a pandemic after consulting with public health experts; the students knew the course's theme when they signed up.On completing the class, the four students published a report on their work, titled "Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Saving Lives in the Next Pandemic." Other groups of students developed plans for two other projects: (1) an Internet site or home page with local, timely pandemic information and (2) a public school curriculum to educate children and parents and develop "community resiliency" by fostering and mobilizing community support networks.
According to the students' report on the pandemic hotline, people calling in would be greeted by an automated message asking for their language preference and the reason for the call. Emergency calls could be routed directly to experts, bypassing the volunteer, who would have general knowledge.
The caller would then be routed to a volunteer for help. The volunteer would use a computer program to obtain local pandemic information on the Internet by typing in the caller's zip code. Callers could obtain information on such topics as hygiene, local school closures, and how to stay healthy during a pandemic. If the volunteer's Internet service went down?a possibility during a pandemic?calls would be routed to other volunteers. (CIDRAP)
Quite nice. If people are staying home, a system like this would , in essence, connect up home bound people with other home bound people who have a resource to help them. It's still just an idea. It needs to be fleshed out and software developed to implement and replicate it in local communities. But it's still a good and promising idea. So what's not to like?
Courses like this most often promote the idea that the best way, or even the only way, to make the fruits of your labors available to society is to commercialize it. Most scientists want to have their research make a difference in the world but they have been convinced by NIH, their professors and their colleagues this means patenting, licensing and selling it. That's "how it works" in the modern world. If you're not willing to get your hands dirty in the business world your idea/discovery/invention will remain an academic curiosity or be picked up by someone else who will profit from it in your place. Apparently this is the idea, here, too:
"We want to have a product with scripts, costs, and details of what technology is needed so an individual organization can set up a hotline within 2 weeks," she said. At this point it is not clear who will own and market the product, Skapinsky said, and that is something the team wants to determine this summer.
"We are hoping someone will take ownership of this after we do all the work," she said.
There are a couple of problems with this. While for many ideas, commercializing is the right strategy, it is not true for all of them, or perhaps not even for most of them. Some ideas are extremely good but not profitable. If it isn't profitable, you won't get someone to produce it. Or if they do, they often require an exclusive license, they then charge too much and the product will fail but it will be out of your control. The scientific world is full of examples of research examples of good work that was patented, licensed and then faded away because the barriers to use by others were too great. Plenty of bioinformatic software falls into that category. On the other hand there are also outstanding examples of ideas that were made available at no cost and are now in common use. The open source statistical package R is a good example. It rivals its competitors in features, flexibility, breadth of application and users.
For many products, and this sounds like one of them, the best way to have them used is to give them away, in this case, in the form of open source software others can use, develop and implement without restriction. If your interest is mainly to make a useful product for society and not to make a lot of money, many times the optimal route is not to commercialize it.
These Stanford students probably most likely just want to do a good thing for the world. They shouldn't believe the only way to do it is to find a company who will sell it. Make it and its source code available on the web. If it's good, it will be used.
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No sell. All communication systems may be too overloaded,
and with an unpreparing, blindsided public, what advice do they hope to be able to give people that they could implement?
I see nothing in place that there would still be supplies anyway; to hook people up with, if they could travel and go get them, or, if others could deliver (see nothing to make those scenarios likely, either)
Volunteers having a "tips for handling stress" sheet to read are still going to crack under calls from all sort of people who are suffering, their loved ones are dying/dead.
Are these Stanford students, their university, region, prepared to meet their own needs during Panflu Year? Have they seen the cfrs in Indonesia and Egypt this year?
crf: Let's think this through a bit more carefully. You seem to only want to plan for one eventuality: a catastrophic pandemic where the infrastructure is down. This is possible but it is not the only possibility. Nor, even if that happens, will it happen immediately all over at once. The problem with your view, IMO, is that it not only ignores many other scenarios but it paralyzes people from doing anything. Either you plan for the end of the world or you do nothing because it's of no use. Not a prudent planning strategy as far as I am concerned.
These Stanford students probably most likely just want to do a good thing for the world.
Or not.
I live in the area, and have met and spoken to a few newly minted Stanford graduates in the last year.
Just as are most young holders of bachelor's degrees in contemporary America, they are, with only a few exceptions, fixated on the goal of making as much money as possible, as fast as possible, by any means necessary, including but not limited to ethical means. They want what they want and they want it now.
The elite universities of this country used to pride themselves on inculcating something larger than merely self-aggrandizement in their pupils. That attitude is pretty much gone now. And why should it not be? It is no longer prevalent in the larger society at any level, elite or plebian.
For thirty years now, incoming US freshmen have been asked certain questions intended to determine their attitudes and goals with regard to their university experience.
Among the things which they are asked to do is to rank the relative importance to them of "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" and of "becoming well-off financially".
For decades now, the former has continually slipped in perceived importance. The latter has continually ascended to new heights.
The evangelical reawakening in 19th-century America held out the explicit goal of returning society to what were thought to have been the forgotten and neglected principles of the Christian Gospels.
We in truth now follow the Gospel today. Not quite the one intended by the Reawakeners. Contemporary America adheres to the Gospel of Grab. Get what you can for yourself. Do what you have to do. Remain untroubled by doubt or conscience; they will only impede your freedom of action.
Charge people a pretty penny for lifesaving information? Not in any sense different from the way that business is routinely transacted in other sectors.
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I agree completely with Revere. Often, the only correct guidelines for crfullmoon seem to be those that he advocates and nothing less.
The Internet seems to have given us this false sense of entitlement to free information. It is great, don't get me wrong. But there are other ways to distribute information and it costs money to implement. Furthermore, people need compensation. Would you rather listen to a recorded advertisement, to pay for the help while you are frantically trying to treat a sick child?
Even if the above is a poor excuse, at least these kids are building the infrastructure and organization of a potentially life saving program. In times of true crisis, I'd give anything for help. And just PERHAPS, in a time of crisis, they'd GIVE AWAY anything TO help?!
IMHO, the individualistic approach will be tough to follow in any long term crisis.
CIDRAP has posted the following update to this story:
Editor's note: This story was revised July 9, 2007, to make clear that plans call for the pandemic hotline model to be made freely available to anyone interested, not marketed as a commercial product. Some statements in the original version implied that the model would be marketed commercially.
Clarification: Behrman said the Stanford team is developing the content and design for the pandemic hotline using an open-source model, with the results to be made freely available, not sold as a commercial product.
Anon: Thanks for the update. I used the story as an occasion to discuss something that bothers me and I'm glad this isn't an example of something I see quite a lot, the idea the only way to get something "out there" is to commercialize it.
Marquer wrote:
Heh. As both someone who cares about ethics and social concerns, and a somewhat recent graduate of a rather prestigious university, I also would have ranked the former higher than the latter, for several reasons.
I'd rank the former low because it would have sounded to me like a pretentious, pompous, and unlikely goal. Develop my own philosophy? Even at eighteen years old, I didn't think I knew that much. They surely didn't intend it to sound that way, but that's how it reads to me; it doesn't mean I wasn't concerned with coming to an understanding of how I wanted to be in the world.
And I would have ranked the latter as of some importance, if not primary importance, because I and others of my generation were aware of reasons why it was important, not least of which being the need to pay off large student loans. (The cost of college has skyrocketed in the past thirty years as well.)
One could read the data as saying college students are becoming more selfish and materialistic, or one could read it as students becoming more realistic, in their expectations of a college education as well as the practical necessities of life after it.
(This is not meaant to defend turning a public service technology into a for-profit product, just following the slight tangent.)
Meanwhile, the vast majority is not getting ready for anything. They haven't even heard of pandemic, nor know about the pandemicflu.gov site, and, a two-week emergency that is then over needs no serious preparation; public always gets outside aid, right??
98 or 99% of the people who get sick are going to be ok in two weeks, right??
Public has their officals', their doctors' "word of honor" on that??
It currently falls on local municipalities to "meet the needs of those homebound by illness or quarantine"; and no one is making provisions against those needs. Betting lives they'll "have months to stock up once pandemic is declared"? All those "just-in-time" public "message" campaigns, Red Cross Home Care for Pandemic Flu brochures. lowering public expectations for standards of care, last minute cross-training to fill essential jobs; all going to go so well?
Too many officials are saying it in your two extremes;
"Either you plan for the end of the world
or you do nothing because it's of no use."
Give the public all the facts and let them chose their actions; they are adults and deserve to be fully informed. (If they want to then disbelieve pandemic won't disrupt supply chains or couldn't possibly affect everyone at once, well, at least they got to hear about pandemic year alert, and, H5N1 that caused said alert. Fair warning.)
Public health officials are not telling the public to prepare for a pandemic with supply chain disruptions because they think it is literally "the end of the world"??
Perhaps they need mental health care pre-pandemic. (Indeed one agency's plan mentioned this.) (Was that the UN? Just knowing the need for this plan may cause adverse reactions that need to be addressed -said something to that effect.)
Doctors are not telling their patients -because doctors don't plan on being around??
"If it's that bad who'd want to live in a world like that anyway; I can't tell the public!" - that's what sort of person the public is trusting to warn them in time to prepare if something was really possible; that's what pay taxes pay him for; not for keeping pandemic "planning" secret, and hidden from view under other designations, away from the public. Taxpayers trusted local govt to warn them. Not smile and lie and hide.
Not pay for a $9million dollar PR firm for HHS spin and future damage control. Not $12k per CDC employee to faboo their office building.
Officials, including local doctors, hospital administrators, emergency mangement officials politicians are the ones who seem to be paralyzed and doing nothing useful, since they try so hard to keep the public in the dark what a pandemic alert is or what impacts are or what is expected that public - and govt - and the front-line employee -is unready for. Needs will exceed resources; catastrophe. "Mitigation" requires proactive public actions.
The state is neglecting to spend money and buy enough supplies, but, plans to seize them from any private businesses that tried to do the right thing and buy supplies for their own continuity plans and their employees?? The feds spend billions a month on their wars, yet plan to do the same seizures of private resources?
Vague calls to "strengthen the public health infrastructure" have done nothing the past few years. This quarters' proft, and, the public being allowed to think the future is certain to continue as the past, act as if pandemic isn't possible and then pretend to be surprised and say the resulting mess isn't officials' fault? (Many of them have already "retired"; so it won't happen on their watch. They left, without doing their duty and warning about what they knew.)
People at the Flu Wiki hadn't been paralysed; they had the wiki up for 4 months before the pandemicflu.gov site was up; giving the lie in the face of my health dept official, who insisted because there would be no vaccine he couldn't let the public know. There was "nothing anyone could do! They'd panic!" People can too, afford to prep on a budget; if they have time, and know meeting their needs is totally up to them. Can't afford not to.
Knowing, and writing plans that say, you yourself get first dibs on antivirals and vaccine, and, have special powers for the duration, yet not warning the public, is unethical.
Knowing, yet failing to explain it to the public; so they lobby for buying what will be needed, is unthical.
"First do no harm"? "Precautionary Principle"? -instead, the public gets officals projecting their adjustment reactions onto the public, and the "Reckless Endangerment" "don't ask, don't tell" route. Why not "Redefining Readiness" instead? www.redefiningreadiness.net/
"With the Public's Knowledge, We Can Make Protection Possible"
The public should be discussing their 55p pdf "What Makes Home Isolation Possible?"
Turn this into a hurricane scenario instead: It's early 2004, and you're a public hurricane specialist in coastal Louisiana. You can foresee a busier-than-usual hurricane season approching. Do you: A) Tell the public to prepare bug-out bags so that they can prepare for immediate withdrawal from the area in the case of a huge storm, and warn them before each impending storm? OR B) Say nothing except,"We might develop a big storm in the next few years", and then hand out "stress mitigation tips" papers to college students so that they can pass them out to the hurricane survivors after Hurricane Biggy arrives and wipes out everything they own, as well as many of their family members.
It is arrogant, patronizing, and, frankly, negligent to sit on one's hands when one can see a hurricane --or pandemic--approaching and do nothing but squeak out a few socially-acceptable phrases meant to calm the masses. ("Two weeks of preps" comes to mind. Malarkey. I remember being sick as a dog for six weeks in 1967-68.)
We don't know when an H5-N1 pandemic might occur, but many mutational and local epidemic signs AND many outcries from respected scientists and international medical organization leaders are giving an appropriate warning. Pity that it's only to a very few interested people.
I can only imagine what Lousiana and Mississippi would have looked like if the hurricane evacuation warning had been handled in the same manner as current action regarding pandemic preparation warnings. "Stress mitigation"? Please, no.
Annie... I dont disagree with mishandling of Katrina on all parts of government. Brownie is still looking, he was turned down as dog catcher in N. Orleans though. Dogs all drowned.
Kidding aside, I am saying this here and now and that is that we have been warned and the NFP states what the Federal Government is going to do and not do. It will be modified as it comes along. But some Federal blanket an area preps are underway. There is NO way that the Federal government will get involved in the day to day operations of a states preparations. The DOC told all of the US expatriates to prepare for FOUR months worth of pandemic.
CDC isnt a preparedness group as a rule. The latest is that it should be three months from one side of government to as little as two weeks. Go with four. If it lasts longer than that then we are all dead anyway. Media is more interested in Paris Hiltons makeup, Iraq and whether Ms. New Jersey was really getting it on in a video than hyping this up.
Disaster will come soon enough. Do what you can with what you have and inform as best able. You might save a few, or the try is all you can do. The Feds wont be coming on this one and they have stated it as such. Revere wants them to beef up the medical infrastructure with UHC. Well if it cost 100,000 per patient it would be 100 million for the first 1000 patients in your city much less the country. Who is going to pay for that? This is the reason they should be warning people like there is no tommorow. Mainly because there wont be one. Losses for insurance companies will take them out completely, hospitals will collapse in under a week to two. But we are humans and we always come out on top...so far.
Stress mitigation? Please. I think thats something that our society dreamed up like ADD, PTSD. It has a real effect. If BF comes dont worry your all encompassing federal government will be out there socializing everything to make sure you have healthcare, food and buses to leave the city. Yeah...right. Blanco will be in charge of the evacuation. Brownie will drive the buses, and Nagin will be saying we are facing a disaster of immense proportions. No shit!