THE LAST WORD
A panel discusses the growing use of sensors at the “Con- hours—and then price particular stretches of the road ap-
verging Technologies: Innovations That Are Changing propriately depending on how crowded it’s going to be.
the World” seminar at the 2008 Women of Color STEM
Conference.
3D TECHNOLOGY, AND HOW IT COULD
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION
BE USED IN HEALTHCARE
SYSTEMS
Diana Henderson,
Ching-Hua Chen-ritzo Senior Engineer
Research Staff Member IBM
IBM
When you think of health
When we say intelligent care and the goals of health
transportation systems, what care, it is a continuous proc-
we are typically referring to ess of maintaining and trying
is that we try to infuse a net- to improve our physical and
work of land transportation mental well being, but how
systems and infrastructure do virtual worlds and virtual
with sensing technology to collect real time information. reality relate to health care?
Why should we care about intelligent transportation
As a user of a virtual world, we’re represented by what’s
systems?
called avatars. You can either design it to look like you,
One of the reasons is that it will help us reduce conges- or you can take on another persona and make it whoever
tion. One hundred and fi fty million weeks of time is lost you want. You have control over who you are, control
in productivity, and 58 fully loaded super tankers of fuel over your environment, how you interact with it, and
wasted by being stuck in traffi c. Intelligent transportation how you interact with other users in that environment.
systems can help reduce the amount of congestion we
Virtual reality means you can represent who you are,
are experiencing. Another nice outcome is the potential
model yourself in the reality of who you are, but you
reduction in environmental pollution. A third advantage
also have the opportunity to model what you want to
is that it will make our commuting experience just more
be—kind of like the avatar.
pleasant, because we spend so much time on the roads it
will be a contribution to the quality of our lives. Well, if we can model ourselves, then we can model our
defense organ systems, model what we look like, how
The fourth value is improved safety. When we look into
we want to be, then close the gap and see what medi-
the future we have vehicle-based intelligence. One aspect
cal processes apply to us to try and improve our health.
of that is variable stability assist. Until recently they were
That’s where 3-D technology comes in.
just available in higher end cars, but in 2012 it will be
mandated for all vehicles to have them. Let’s say you’re a patient. You go to the doctor and say
‘Oh, my back hurts.’ What is the doctor going to do?
IBM has been involved in projects around the world to
They’re going to ask you some questions, run a couple
improve the quality of the traffi c experience, by pricing
of tests; you’ll fi ll up some paper work. Maybe you’ll tell
busy or congested parts of the network system appropri-
them about prior ailments, illnesses you’ve had, prior
ately, so that at certain times of the day it costs money
conditions and diagnoses that other doctors have given.
to enter certain parts of the city and in this way reduce
In general, that particular doctor doesn’t have all the
congestion.
information about you, especially if you’ve gone to mul-
Today we see static congestion pricing systems around, tiple doctors. Your medical information is spread all over
but what we are really trying to get to in the future will the place, in different databases and in different health
be dynamic congestion pricing mechanisms. So I just institutions. This is one area IBM researchers are getting
don’t know that for the rest of the year it’s going to cost involved in.
me $5 to enter this part of the city between this time
Within IBM, they’re using avatar technology. At a click
and that time, but I have a system that will make use of
of a mouse on an avatar, I can bring up a database of
the real time information we are collecting about traffi c
information about you and any kind of prior medical
conditions. And have an intelligent way to forecast what
procedures, prior medical images, diagnoses, notes that
the congestion situation will be in the next two to three
www.womenofcolor.net WOMENOFCOLOR | FALL 2009 69
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