CDC’s Informatics Research and
Development Activity (IRDA)
and
R&D Lab
Tom Savel, MD, Director
Brian Lee, Acting Deputy Director
Informatics Research & Development Activity
Public Health Surveillance & Informatics Program Office
Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services
CDC
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Informatics Research & Development
Activity (IRDA)
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A resource to CDC and the public health community that
studies, prototypes, and tests new and innovative
technology-based tools and resources to maximize
programmatic public health impact.
Our philosophy is, “Better, faster, low-cost experiments
for how technology can improve public health.”
The R&D Lab:
History & Current
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Physical space created in 2007
Within NCPHI’s Division of Informatics Shared Services
Predominantly a resource for NCPHI
Focused on R&D Activities
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Testing and Hosting hardware and software solutions
Responding to Public Health Emergencies
Created with a separate network from CDC
Unit/Activity organized in January 2010
Security C&A in October 2010
Agency resource in October 2010
R&D Lab Website
Web address for R&D Lab
 http://www.phiresearchlab.org
Lab Services
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Applied Public Health Informatics Research
Cloud – lab provides 1+ virtual machines for 3+
months, accessed remotely (for free)
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Test and profile non-CDC supported software
Community Engagement (UAT, JAD, Social Media)
Open Source Development
Prototype – gain insight by building software to
test concepts and refine requirements
Consultation – explore innovation options
Evaluation – structured review of technology for
public health audience
Lab Organization
Sara Brown
UX Designer (SRA)
Dale LaValley
Lead Technology
Engineer
Infrastructure
Greg Ledbetter
Developer (SRA)
Prototyping
Consultation &
Evaluation
Brian Lee
Acting Deputy Director
Tom Savel, MD
Director
IRDA Teams
 Research and Innovation Team
• Provides consultation; develops guidelines, evaluations,
recommendations to CDC & public health community
• e.g., evaluating new open source data mining, GIS, and
visualization tools
 Prototype Development Team
• Expertise in hardware and software design and development
• e.g., MMWR for iPad , STD Guidelines for iPhone, & web
apps….
 Laboratory Infrastructure and support team
• Develops and maintains secure, dynamic environment in which
to experiment and carry out research
• (i.e., R&D sandbox hosting, aka…. R&D Lab Research cloud)
The Public Health Informatics Research Cloud
Lab Manager
The R&D Lab:
Infrastructure
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Internet Connectivity: Dedicated 10 MB Fiber & DSL
backup
Cloud: Infrastructure: VMWare™ - based
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Environments: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, SQL Server,
Oracle, MySQL, and others.
Hardware Architecture
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VM Capacity- ~5000
Live, simultaneous VMs – 400
Dell, HP, Wyse Thin Client, Apple
Mobile devices (Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, Blackberry
Playbook, Barnes & Noble Nook)
19 Computers – Physical Lab
The R&D Lab:
Security
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Enclave network isolated from CDC using
physical controls
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Rules of Behavior:
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No PHI/PII – Synthetic Data Only
No interdependence with production systems
No SLA
R&D Lab Cloud vs. Amazon Cloud
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Granularity of control (performance, etc.)
Degree of Customization offered (VLAN creation,
etc.)
Relationship to CDC
Subject Matter Expertise
Physical Location
– CDC Campus
Terremark example…
Project Overview
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Total Projects*: 67
Under Review: 0
Approved: 46
Completed/Retired: 17
Engagement Types:
 Internal: 6
 External: 48
 Collaborative:13
* as of 2/21/12
Research Project Management System
Selected Prototype Engagements
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PTT Advisor
PHTweet
Public Health News
STD Treatment Guide eBook / iPhone App
MMWR for iPad
SAMwise+
NHSN Central Line Insertion Practices iPhone App
Situation Awareness Dashboard
Selected Partner Engagements
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Chronic Kidney Disease Web Portal Evaluation –
NCCDPHP – Pre-release Partner Feedback
Health Statistics Web Presentation Prototype – NCHS –
Testing new technology platform
SDN Multi-Platform Certificate Testing – ITSO – Crossbrowser testing
Universal Data Collection External User Acceptance
Testing – NCBDDD – External UAT
Biosurveillance Registry Alternatives Analysis – PHSPO
– Multiple pilots of different software configuration
Arctic Investigations Program Legacy Systems Testing –
NCEZID – Dynamic server and client environments
Demonstrations
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Central Line Insertion Practices (CLIP)
Adherence Monitoring for iPad
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Submission of data to NHSN
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Real-time data entry and submission using app
Replacing / supplementing web-based data entry, usually at end of the day
HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) for Data Exchange
REST Web Service API for App-NHSN communication
(Facility Location)
Intuitive and simple UI
Demonstrations, CLIP
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/forms/57.125_CLIP_BLANK.pdf
Demonstrations, CLIP
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/forms/57.125_CLIP_BLANK.pdf
Demonstrations
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Situation Awareness Dashboard Redesign
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Visual Prototype
Modular Approach - Widgets allow composability
Multi-Platform Support - Different Widgets written in
different technologies
Widgets use/give off data as web API/web services
(JSON/XML)
Leveraging HTML5, Web API
Different views based on security & functional roles
Demonstrations, Situation Awareness
Dashboard
Demonstrations
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PTT Advisor
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Diagnostic algorithms
Clinical Decision Support
Embedded in iPhone platform
Demonstrations,
PTT Advisor
Demonstrations
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PHTweet
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Situational Awareness Tool
Leveraging real-time Twitter data
Demonstrations, PHTweet
Demonstrations, PHTweet
Demonstrations, PHTweet
Demonstrations
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Public Health News
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Novel way to visualize Google News
Treemap Algorithm
Demonstrations, Public Health News
Demonstrations
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CDC 2010 STD Guidelines for iPhone
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v1 vs. v2
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations,
STD Guidelines
Source: 2010 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/
Demonstrations
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MMWR for the iPad “MMWR Navigator”
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Standard method for displaying data on iPad
Split-view controller
Demonstrations, MMWR Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Navigator
Demonstrations
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MMWR for iPad (prototype II) - Map Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations, MMWR Map
Navigator
Demonstrations
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SAMwise+ (Suitability Assessment of Materials)
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Automating the process of assessing messages and
material for conformance with health literacy
standards
Prototyped foundation for further development
Demonstrations, SAMwise+
Demonstrations, SAMwise+
Demonstrations, SAMWise+
Demonstrations, SAMWise+
Thank you
Questions?
The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
For more information, please contact Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30333
Telephone, 1-800-CDC-INFO (232-4636)/TTY: 1-888-232-6348
E-mail: cdcinfo@cdc.gov
Web: www.atsdr.cdc.gov