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DataDrivenMD | 6 years ago

Sweet. Looked into the KWA's site, seems like a clear use-case. If we were to break down the build into achievable chunks we may have more success, and have a bigger impact along the way.

There's an immediate need for a single source of truth for all the locations where COVID-19 testing is available. Trump said Google was building it, but turns out they are weeks away from an MVP that would only cover the SF Bay Area. I propose we start by solving that problem.

Building on this, we can answer the question: what is the scope of the problem? Today, the CDC doesn't have an accurate count of the # of COVID-19 tests that have been performed because they don't have a way to collect that info from the growing number of labs that are performing the tests. Moreover, there's no way for anybody to know how many people have actually been tested, because the same person can be tested multiple times. We could solve this problem by crowdsourcing that information directly from individuals.

Building on this, we need to know where the sickest people are right now, and predict where they could be in the near future. This is crucial information for healthcare providers (like me) and public health officials alike. Without this information in hand, it's virtually impossible to know where to direct resources (like doctors, nurses, ventilators, medical supplies, testing equipment, etc.). We need to be able to track demand AND supply in real-time --> this is the point at which the project starts shaping itself into an Uber-like platform.

Building on this, we could enable individuals to post offers to help and for others to request assistance. This would allow people like your mom to lend a hand where it is a) safe for her and b) most needed.

The ultimate goal would be to build an open-source platform that could be used by communities around the world with little-to-no deployment overhead. Ideally, it would be possible to clone the repo, customize a few parameters, and deploy instances in less than an hour.

I'll flesh this out a bit more, and submit the idea as an Ask HN topic.

discuss

order

rectang|6 years ago

> There's an immediate need for a single source of truth for all the locations where COVID-19 testing is available.

Seems like that could be achieved with a static HTML website, possibly augmented with a REST API.

I doubt that information is changing very quickly. It could theoretically even be committed to a Git repo in a CSV file. However, although that would work for generating a website, it wouldn't be clone-able. So perhaps consider some canonical datastore in the cloud somewhere.

Also: I propose Apache/MIT licensing to minimize the friction of collaboration with both commercial entities and charities.

Technology wise, I don't care: it should just be something mainstream, popular and easy.

> Moreover, there's no way for anybody to know how many people have actually been tested, because the same person can be tested multiple times.

That seems like a harder problem because of patient privacy issues.

DataDrivenMD|6 years ago

> That seems like a harder problem because of patient privacy issues.

Agreed, but even a simple honor system would be better than the current situation. Perhaps verified via a simple browser-based cookie?

Separately: just dawned on me that HN has no obvious way for users to communicate directly. Any suggestions on how to share contact info without begging for spam/bots?