- A software platform with data on the areas hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the medical supplies that they are most in need of, is bolstering nonprofit Helena's efforts to supply hospitals with much-needed equipment.
- The platform was the outcome of a 60-hour marathon coding effort by Will Jack, the 23-year-old CEO of the health-tech startup Remedy, ex-Tesla engineer Simon Hewat, and Palantir data scientist Rochelle Shen.
- Nonprofits, tech companies and VCs are all jumping in to help slammed US hospitals build an emergency supply chain of masks, ventilators and other much-needed equipment but the process has been hindered by a lack of easily-available information.
- "The need amongst governments and amongst suppliers, for a way to use data analytics to actually measure that stuff accurately and get people updated in real time, and model predictively, is ferociously acute." Helena CEO Henry Elkus told Business Insider.
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It took 60 long hours for Will Jack and his team to build a prototype of the software that could help COVID-19 responders single out the areas with greatest medical need in real time.
Three weeks ago, the 23-year-old CEO was busy managing his med-tech company Remedy. But he'd also signed on some time ago to become a member of the five-year-old nonprofit Helena, which had jumped into the effort to help out slammed US hospitals get access to medical equipment and found itself in need of someone like Jack, who could help forecast where the supplies they were sourcing would be most helpful - both now and in the future.
"Right now, it's masks, but next week, what's it going to be?" Helena CEO Henry Elkus told Business Insider. Both Elkus and his co-founder Sam Feinberg have been heads-down in an effort to source masks, gloves and ventilators to US hospitals for the past couple of weeks, using the help of military veterans to scout out potential supplies in warehouses. "So we called up Will and said, 'Man, your country needs you.'"
Elkus says that Helena isn't the only organization that can benefit from the new open-sourced platform, dubbed 'The Covid Network'. "The need amongst governments and amongst suppliers, for a way to use data analytics to actually measure that stuff accurately and get people updated in real time, and model predictively, is ferociously acute," Elkus said.
And government organizations are already beginning to turn to similar tools. Palantir, the secretive data-analytics company that got its start doing projects for the CIA, is working with the UK government to do just that, the NHS announced at the end of last month.
"To understand and anticipate demand on health and care services, we need a robust operating picture of the virus, how it's spreading, where it might spread next and how that will affect the NHS and social care services," the NHS explained in a press release.
How it works
Jack said his team - he recruited ex-Tesla AI engineer Simon Hewat and Palantir data scientist Rochelle Shen to help him - had a whirlwind of meetings with everyone from epidemiologists to economists to build assumptions around the model. Then they had a coding marathon that lasted 60 sleep-deprived hours. And finally, the team had a prototype.
The database draws on a variety of sources - CMS (Medicare and Medicaid), social distancing, hospitals and county-level census data - allowing COVID responders to view information from a macroscopic view through a "heatmap" to understand where different categories of medical supplies are most needed, as well as on a case-by-case basis.
"It's basically a map and a case management," Jack explained. On the map, users can see various overlays of data that the platform has access to - the number of cases or deaths reported at a county level, or what hospital reports of ventilator supplies look like. Meanwhile, "as hospitals submit or we otherwise aggregate specific requests for aid from organizations on the ground, we display them beneath the map in a table that lets aid organizations respond."
In addition, the predictive side of the platform shows what the number of cases - or deaths - will be in up to a week's time. Machine-learning models can then make predictions on what types of medical supplies are likely to be most needed in the coming weeks, Jack said.
"This is a complex system that's developing day to day. You know, the problem a few weeks ago was with PPE (personal protective equipment) and we identified that, now it's shifting to ventilators, now it's blood plasma shortages and who knows what comes next," Jack said, adding that the team has been working to continue refining the model.
"We figured out we could add value by tackling these three categories: where the need is right now, how that need will develop, and what new needs will develop over time," he said.
Helping a fragmented medical supply chain
A strained medical supply chain could cause the US to face a catastrophic shortage of masks, personal protective equipment, ventilators, placing doctors, nurses and front-line medical workers at dire risk. And profiteers - people selling supplies to hospitals at a markup - have caused the prices to jump up.
So a number of players - both experienced nonprofits and grassroots players - have leapt in. Big tech companies like Apple and Salesforce are manufacturing or donating masks and face shields. Two VCs are leveraging their global networks to supply hospitals, an effort that was endorsed by ex-presidential candidate Andrew Yang in a tweet.
And then there's Helena, which has raised close to $17 million to shoulder the cost (and risk) of getting supplies from quickly vetted sources, so it can supply hospitals with equipment at cost, rather than rake in a profit.
So far, Helena has supplied 34 hospitals with close to 300,000 KN95 masks (an additional 1.1 million are en-route, they said), and more than 650,000 pairs of gloves. The nonprofit has also connected hospitals with suppliers not looking to profit from these transactions, allowing for the orders of 1,000 ventilators, over 14,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and 2,200 safety googles. Still more orders for equipment are being processed, Helena said.
Helena's two co-founders are hoping that Jack's software platform will help them maximize the value they're adding by helping them direct supplies to the hospitals that most need it right now.
"The most challenging thing has just been trying to do this everywhere that it's needed, because the need is just so great," Helena's Elkus said. "What we're doing is focusing on the areas where the need is greatest, because obviously to do this everywhere you need billions of dollars."
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