The government’s Halloween press conference was an obvious example to use in my article for Computer Weekly on the good, bad and ugly of data visualisation during the pandemic. Before one slide headed ‘England new SPI-M combined projection bed usage’, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance actually said “this is a complicated slide”. No argument there (see below). Professor Chris Whitty charged through 10 slides in under seven minutes.
Category: Hospitals
Au revoir, Ojeu
In a few hours’ time, those of us who watch UK public sector will say au revoir to one of our most generous providers of stories. From 1 January 2021, UK public sector procurement notices – announcements that an organisation is thinking about or offering to buy something, has bought it or has cancelled its plans – will no longer appear on Tenders Electronic Daily, aka TED, aka the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, aka Ojeu. Continue reading “Au revoir, Ojeu”
The many problems with automated decision making
I have written about automated decision making or machine learning for Computer Weekly, in particularly the numerous problems with using it. The biggest set of issues is summed up nicely by Joanna Bryson of Bath and Princeton universities: “The reason machine learning is working so well is it is leveraging human culture. It’s getting the bad with the good.”
Continue reading “The many problems with automated decision making”
Wearable technology in cardiology, epilepsy and diabetes care
Originally published by Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network, 29 March 2017
A six minute walk test is more work than it sounds. It measures a patient’s health by getting them to walk up and down a measured length of corridor wearing a finger sensor that records blood oxygen level and pulse, with two healthcare professionals counting the turns and monitoring the sensor data. Continue reading “Wearable technology in cardiology, epilepsy and diabetes care”
Oxford vaccine test volunteers infected with typhoid
Volunteers in Oxford agreed to infect themselves with typhoid, as part of a recently-completed trial of a vaccination that could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The Oxford Vaccine Group, part of University of Oxford, gave 99 volunteers a drink laced with live Salmonella Typhi bacteria a month after vaccinating them. A third had been vaccinated with Typbar-TCV, a new conjugate typhoid vaccine, a third with established vaccine Typhim Vi and the rest with meningitis vaccine Menveo, which does not protect against typhoid. Neither the volunteers nor the doctors carrying out the injections knew who was getting which vaccine. Continue reading “Oxford vaccine test volunteers infected with typhoid”