Impact of analytics on local government, healthcare spotlighted in first day of Nashville’s “Analytics Summit 2020”
Day two of the Greater Nashville Technology Council’s (GNTC) annual “Analytics Summit 2020” continues in a virtual environment today, the first time the event has not been held in-person. That fact gave us the opportunity to tune-in on two sessions focused on very different sectors but with a common thread: utilizing data to drive better decision making.
Produced by the GNTC in partnership with the Tennessee Chapter of HiMSS, the agenda for yesterday showed 38 sessions with another 29 scheduled for today. An event we will be attending this afternoon is the latest iteration in the Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s “Pitch for Good” series that spotlights start-ups in specific sectors. Today’s focus is on data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) for obvious reasons.
One of the Monday sessions that attracted our attention featured Victor Brown, an Entrepreneur whom we have spotlighted in teknovation.biz on two different occasions. He’s the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xcellent Life LLC, a company that participated in the recent “HealthTech Accelerator” operated by CO.LAB with support from Erlanger Health System and Unum.
Brown’s session was titled “How AI-Powered Analytics Will Transform Healthcare.” Acknowledging that “my deep area of expertise is the application of technology,” he discussed AI in the context of how he believes it is and will continue to forever change healthcare.
“We are less than 10 years from AI being used in a way that totally disrupts healthcare,” Brown declared as he drew a comparison between switchgear used in the energy sector and the human body. Both have nine to 11 key systems. In the case of switchgear, however, he said those different systems are monitored regularly, a process that helps avoid failure. Regular monitoring of all body systems is not the case currently in healthcare.
Brown urged the 55 people who tuned-in for his session to “lead by pushing and promoting innovation that has a purpose for good,” focus on possibilities more than barriers, and collaborate to make healthcare and the world better.
Earlier in the afternoon, the City of Franklin hosted a session titled “Community Building and Making a Difference Through Data.” Panelists were Michael Walters Young, Budget and Strategic Innovation Manager, and Jason Potts, Interim Information Technology Director.
Having worked with local governments across Tennessee for more than three decades in career one, it was a very interesting discussion of how decision making is being transformed as a result of access to so much data.
“Data drives everything we do,” Young told about 35 attendees who observed the session, one of five offered at the same time. “Of all the producers of data, government is among the biggest,” he said. To appreciate the magnitude, just think of all of the functions of a city – police, fire, public works, parks and recreation, and schools in some cases. That is not an inclusive list, but it underscores the breadth.
And, for a city like Franklin that will probably see a nearly nine-fold increase in its population in 50 years when the 2020 census numbers are released, that’s a staggering growth that stresses all systems.
Yet, what impressed me the most in the presentation was how the city is using data to report progress on its strategic plan – Franklin Forward. While noting that the dashboards that are made available to citizens are powered by the data collected, Young explained that the city has not simply created an open data portal. “We’ve taken a different approach . . . data in context,” he said.
