There are many examples of how society can use The Extraordinaries software to do social good. Below I propose a way to tackle breast cancer.
While visiting my family for the Thanksgiving holiday, we got into a discussion about the medical sciences, and in particular about mammography.
Apparently, there is a shortage of radiologists, and my mom has to wait 11-months to have her mammogram looked at. For many people, especially those genetically prone to breast cancer, 11-months may mean the difference between “caught just in time” or “a few weeks too late”.
This got me thinking. What can we do about it?
Each year, tens of thousands of people participate in Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure walkathons. Thousands more around the world face difficult times each year, as their sisters, mothers, daughters, and wives are told that they have breast cancer. That is a ton of people who have a direct vested interest in prevention, and a ton of potential human energy just waiting to be tapped.
Before I offer a potential solution, let me first show you a picture of two mammograms.
On the left, is a normal healthy image. On the right, is a lump showing cancer. It isn’t blatantly obvious, but it isn’t that hard to see. In a sense, we are looking for shapes, for things that stand out as abnormalities. With brief training, I believe that thousands of people could volunteer to help identify problems. They can view the images on mobile phones, draw circles around areas with potential problems, all delivered through our software.
I propose, that we crowdsource the scanned imagery. I am not suggesting that we replace doctors or radiologists with everyday people. I am saying that we reinforce them, give them 500 extra sets of eyes. After all, doctors are human, and they can miss things. Medicine is one of those fields where science is often surpassed by the artistry of a doctor’s talents. A doctor is a human making a judgment call, based on a specific set of past experiences, and their opinions vary. As a result, many of us get second, third, and fourth opinions.
If we had 500 people look at each x-ray, and the average of those people point to problem in one quadrant of screen, it might raise attention of a doctor to look again. Like Google page rankings, those people with the highest number of hits regarding a potential problem, could get moved to top of list for an appointment.
My business partner Ben Rigby offered his take on this idea:
A problem could be false positives - or cases that are less obvious. Then what do you do after the crowd identifies a problem? Also, why cant you look at your own xray and see the problem, if you had training? Maybe it's more a matter of training, than a case for crowdsourcing. The case becomes very interesting when trained doctors are volunteering... then it's a real match up of high-expertise and people in need.
Ben makes some interesting points. However, I would actually disagree that looking at your own xray is the best approach. I would take one look at my xray, and freak about every little dot on the screen. Contrastingly, the aggregate intuition of several hundred people would be a little more selective in their judgment of what is, or is not, a potential problem.
Nevertheless, in a triage approach, I think this would work.
Having the crowd sift through tens of thousands of backlogged mammography scans to identify those that need the most attention would add tremendous value to the medical community and save thousands of lives each year. When 70 out of 100 people point out a potential problem in one quadrant of a screen, maybe a doctor should look at it a little faster than 11-months.
What do you think?
Tags: breastcancer, komen, breast, susan g. komen, mobile phones, mobile volunteering, online volunteering, nptech, cancer, medicine, doctors, radiology, radiologist, fight, race for the cure, fighting
