Designed with data from the Community of Madrid, this initiative has made it possible to monitor the recovery process after COVID-19 in sectors such as transport, tourism and public safety.

The tool has been developed with the aim of understanding not only the impact, but also the degree of recovery that some services and activities have experienced after the pandemic in Madrid.

Thus, through open data portals, the application offers interactive visualizations with the following variables:

• Municipal police
  
  •  Citizen safety information
  • Alcohol consumption on public roads
  • Inspections and actions in premises
• Tourism
  
  • Number of nights and average price at Airbnb
• Mobility and transportation
  
  • Occupancy rate of parking lots in the city of Madrid
  • Metro ridership
  • BiciMAD movements
  • Google mobility transportation stations
• COVID-19
  
  • Cumulative incidence rate

In each panel, conclusions can be known based on data on the state of recovery of each parameter, a situation that varies depending on the sector. While on-street drinking and AirbnB tourism see higher activity, metro ridership is still lower than pre-pandemic data. 

Open data sources are: 

• Community of Madrid open data catalog for the cumulative rate of contagion in the community of Madrid: https://datos.comunidad.madrid/catalogo/dataset
• EMT Madrid open dataset for BICIMAD data: https://opendata.emtmadrid.es/Datos-estaticos/
• Madrid metro website data for Madrid metro ridership data: https://www.metromadrid.es/es/transparencia/proyectos-y-datos#panel1
• Google mobility local mobility reports for citizen mobility data: https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/

We present a new report in the series 'Emerging Technologies and Open Data', by Alejandro Alija. The aim of these reports is to help the reader understand how various technologies work, what is the role of open data in them and what impact they will have on our society. This series includes monographs on data analysis techniques such as natural language analysis and predictive analytics.  This new volume of the series analyzes the key aspects of data analysis applied to images and, through this exercise, Artificial Intelligence applied to the identification and classification of diseases by means of medical radio imaging, delves into the more practical side of the monograph.

Image analysis adopts different names and ways of referring to it. Some of the most common are visual analytics, computer vision or image processing. The importance of this type of analysis is of great relevance nowadays, since many of the most modern algorithmic techniques of artificial intelligence have been designed specifically for this purpose. Some of its applications can be seen in our daily lives, such as the identification of license plates to access a parking lot or the digitization of scanned text to be manipulated.

The report introduces the fundamental concepts that allow us to understand how image analysis works, detailing the main application cases in various sectors. After a brief introduction by the author, which will serve as a basis for contextualizing the subject matter, the full report is presented, following the traditional structure of the series:

• Awareness. The Awareness section explains the key concepts of image analysis techniques. Through this section, readers can find answers to questions such as: how are images manipulated as data, how are images classified, and discover some of the most prominent applications in image analysis.
• Inspire. The Inspire section takes a detailed look at some of the main use cases in sectors as diverse as agriculture, industry and real estate. It also includes examples of applications in the field of medicine, where the author shows some particularly important challenges in this area.
• Action: In this case, the Action section has been published in notebook format, separately from the theoretical report. It shows a practical example of Artificial Intelligence applied to the identification and classification of diseases using medical radio imaging. This post includes a step-by-step explanation of the exercise. The source code is available so that readers can learn and experiment by themselves the intelligent analysis of images.

Below, you can download the report - Awareness and Inspire sections - in pdf and word (reusable version). 

The IV edition of the Aporta Challenge, whose motto has revolved around 'The value of data for health and well-being of citizens', has already announced its three winners. The competition, promoted by Red.es in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, launched in November 2021 with an ideas competition and continued earlier this summer with a selection of ten finalist proposals.

As in the three previous editions, the selected candidates had a three month period to transform their ideas into a prototype, which they presented in person at the final gala.

In a post-pandemic context, where health plays an increasingly important role, the theme of the competition sought to identify, recognise and reward ideas aimed at improving the efficiency of this sector with solutions based on the use of open data.

On 18 October, the ten finalists came to the Red.es headquarters to present their proposals to a jury made up of representatives from public administrations, organisations linked to the digital economy, universities and data communities. In just twelve minutes, they had to summarise the purpose of the proposed project or service, explain how the development process had been carried out, what data they had used, and dwell on aspects such as the economic viability or traceability of the project or service.

Ten innovative projects to improve the health sector

The ten proposals presented to the jury showed a high level of innovation, creativity, rigour and public vocation. They were also able to demonstrate that it is possible to improve the quality of life of citizens by creating initiatives that monitor air quality, build solutions to climate change or provide a quicker response to a sudden health problem, among other examples.

For all these reasons, it is not surprising that the jury had a difficult time choosing the three winners of this fourth edition. In the end, HelpVoice initiative won the first prize of €5,000, the Hospital Morbidity Survey won the €4,000 linked to second place and RIAN, the Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender, closed the ranking with third place and €3,000 as an award.

First prize: HelpVoice!

• Team: Data Express, composed of Sandra García, Antonio Ríos and Alberto Berenguer.

HelpVoice! is a service that helps our elderly through voice recognition techniques based on automatic learning. Thus, in an emergency situation, the user only need to click on a device that can be an emergency button, a mobile phone or home automation tools and tell about their symptoms. The system will send a report with the transcript and predictions to the nearest hospital, speeding up the response of the healthcare workers.

In parallel, HelpVoice! will also recommend to the patient what to do while waiting for the emergency services. Regarding the use of data, the Data Express team has used open information such as the map of hospitals in Spain and uses speech and sentiment recognition data in text.

Second prize: The Hospital Morbidity Survey

• Team: Marc Coca Moreno

This is a web environment based on MERN, Python and Pentaho tools for the analysis and interactive visualisation of the Hospital Morbidity Survey microdata. The entire project has been developed with open source and free tools and both the code and the final product will be openly accessible.

To be precise, it offers 3 main analyses with the aim of improving health planning:

• Descriptive: hospital discharge counts and time series.
• KPIs: standardised rates and indicators for comparison and benchmarking of provinces and communities.
• Flows: count and analysis of discharges from a hospital region and patient origin.

All data can be filtered according to the variables of the dataset (age, sex, diagnoses, circumstance of admission and discharge, etc.).

In this case, in addition to the microdata from the INE Hospital Morbidity Survey, statistics from the Continuous Register (also from the INE), data from the ICD10 diagnosis catalogues of the Ministry of Health and from the catalogues and indicators of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and of the Autonomous Communities, such as Catalonia: catalogues and stratification tools, have also been integrated.

You can see the result of this work here.

Third prize: RIAN - Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender

• Team: RIAN Open Data Team, composed of Jesús Noguera y Raúl Micharet..

This project was created to promote healthy habits and combat overweight, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition among children and adolescents. It is an application designed for mobile devices that uses gamification techniques, as well as augmented reality and artificial intelligence algorithms to make recommendations.

Users have to solve personalised challenges, individually or collectively, linked to nutritional aspects and physical activities, such as gymkhanas or games in public green spaces.

In relation to the use of open data, the pilot uses data related to green areas, points of interest, greenways, activities and events belonging to the cities of Malaga, Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona. In addition, these data are combined with nutritional recommendations (food data and nutritional values and branded food products) and data for food recognition by images from Tensorflow or Kaggle, among others.

Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es presents the awards and announces a new edition

The three winners were announced by Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es, at a ceremony held at Red.es headquarters on 27 October. The event was attended by several members of the jury, who were able to talk to the three winning teams.

Martínez Lacambra also announced that Red.es is already working to shape the V Aporta Challenge, which will focus on the value of data for the improvement of the common good, justice, equality and equity.

Once again this year, the Aporta Initiative would like to congratulate the three winners, as well as to thank the work and talent of all the participants who decided to invest their time and knowledge in thinking and developing proposals for the fourth edition of the Aporta Challenge.

Last November, Red.es, in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence launched the 4th edition of the Aporta Challenge. Under the slogan "The value of data for health and well-being of citizens", the competition seeks to identify new services and solutions, based on open data, that drive improvements in this field.

The challenge is divided into two phases: an ideas competition, followed by a second phase where finalists have to develop and present a prototype. We are now at the halfway point of the competition. Phase I has come to an end and it is time to find out who are the 10 finalists who will move on to phase II.

After analysing the diverse and high-quality proposals submitted, the jury has determined a series of finalists, as reflected the resolution published on the Red.es website.

Let us look at each candidacy in detail:

Getting closer to the patient

• Team:

SialSIG aporta, composed of Laura García and María del Mar Gimeno.

• What does it consist of?

A platform will be built to reduce rescue time and optimise medical care in the event of an emergency. Parameters will be analysed to categorise areas by defining the risk of mortality and identifying the best places for aerial rescue vehicles to land. This information will also make available which areas are the most isolated and vulnerable to medical emergencies, information of great value for defining strategies for action that will lead to an improvement in the management and resources to be used.  

• Data

The platform seeks to integrate information from all the autonomous communities, including population data (census, age, sex, etc.), hospital and heliport data, land use and crop data, etc. Specifically, data will be obtained from the municipal census of the National Statistics Institute (INE), the boundaries of provinces and municipalities, the land use classification of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) and data from the SIGPAC (MAPA), among others.

Hospital pressure monitoring

• Team:

DSLAB, data science research group at Rey Juan Carlos University, composed of Isaac Martín, Alberto Fernández, Marina Cuesta and María del Carmen Lancho.

• What does it consist of?

With the aim of improving hospital management, the DSLAB proposes an interactive and user-friendly dashboard that allows:

• Monitor hospital pressure
• Evaluate the actual load and saturation of healthcare centres
• Forecast the evolution of this pressure

This will enable better resource planning, anticipate decision making and avoid possible collapses.

• Data

To realise the tool's potential, the prototype will be created with open data relating to COVID in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León, such as bed occupancy or the epidemiological situation by hospital and province. However, the solution is scalable and can be extrapolated to any other territory with similar data.

RIAN - Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender

• Team:

RIAN Open Data Team, composed of Jesús Noguera y Raúl Micharet.

• What does it consist of?

RIAN was created to promote healthy habits and combat overweight, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition among children and adolescents. It is an application for mobile devices that uses gamification techniques, as well as augmented reality and artificial intelligence algorithms to make recommendations. Users have to solve personalised challenges, individually or collectively, linked to nutritional aspects and physical activities, such as gymkhanas or games in public green spaces.

• Data

The pilot uses data relating to green areas, points of interest, greenways, activities and events from the cities of Málaga, Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona. These data are combined with nutritional recommendations (food data and nutritional values and branded food products) and data for food image recognition from Tensorflow or Kaggle, among others.

MentalReview - visualising data for mental health

• Team:

Kairos Digital Analytics and Big Data Solutions S.L.

• What does it consist of?

MentalReview is a mental health monitoring tool to support health and social care management and planning, enabling institutions to improve citizen care services. The tool will allow the analysis of information extracted from open databases, the calculation of indicators and, finally, the visualisation of the information through graphs and an interactive map. This will allow us to know the current state of mental health in the Spanish population, identify trends or make a study of its evolution.

• Data

For its development, data from the INE, the Sociological Research Centre, the Mental Health Services of the different autonomous regions, the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products or EUROSTAT, among others, will be used. Some specific examples of datasets to be used are: anxiety problems in young people, the suicide mortality rate by autonomous community, age, sex and period or the consumption of anxiolytics.

HelpVoice!

• Team:

Data Express, composed of Sandra García, Antonio Ríos and Alberto Berenguer.

• What does it consist of?

HelpVoice! is a service that helps our elderly through voice recognition techniques based on automatic learning. In an emergency situation, the user only need to click on a device that can be an emergency button, a mobile phone or home automation tools and tell about their symptoms. The system will send a report with the transcript and predictions to the nearest hospital, speeding up the response of the healthcare workers. In parallel, HelpVoice! will also recommend to the patient what to do while waiting for the emergency services.

• Data

Among other open data, the map of hospitals in Spain will be used. Speech and sentiment recognition data will also be used in the text.

Living and liveable cities: creating high-resolution shadow maps to help cities adapt to climate change

• Team:

Living Cities, composed of Francisco Rodríguez-Sánchez and Jesús Sánchez-Dávila.

• What does it consist of?

In the current context of rising temperatures, the Living Cities team proposes to develop open software to promote the adaptation of cities to climate change, facilitating the planning of urban shading. Using spatial analysis, remote sensing and modelling techniques, this software will allow to know the level of insolation (or shading) with high spatio-temporal resolution (every hour of the day at every square metre of land) for any municipality in Spain. The team will particularly analyse the shading situation in the city of Seville, offering its results publicly through a web application that will allow consultation of the insolation maps and to obtain shade routes between different points in the city.

• Data

Living Cities is based on the use of open remote sensing data (LiDAR) from the National Aerial Orthophotography Programme (PNOA), the Seville city trees and spatial data from OpenStreetMap.

Impact of air quality on respiratory health in the city of Madrid

• Team:

So Good Data, composed of Ana Belén Laguna, Manuel López, Vicente Lorenzo, Javier Maestre and Iván Robles.

• What does it consist of?

So Good Data is proposing a study to analyse the impact of air pollution on the number of hospital admissions for respiratory diseases. It will also determine which pollutant particles are likely to be most harmful. With this information, it would be possible to predict the number of admissions a hospital will face depending on air pollution on a given date, in order to take the necessary measures in advance and reduce mortality.

• Data

Among other datasets, hospitalisations due to respiratory diseases, air quality, tobacco sales or atmospheric pollen in the Community of Madrid will be used for the study.

PLES

• Team:

BOLT, composed of Víctor José Montiel, Núria Foguet, Borja Macías, Alejandro Pelegero and José Luis Álvarez.

• What does it consist of?

The BOLT team will create a web application that allows the user to obtain an estimate of the average waiting time for consultations, tests or interventions in the public health system of Catalonia. The time series prediction models will be developed using Python with statistical and machine learning techniques. The user only need to indicate the hospital and the type of consultation, operation or test for which he/she is waiting. In addition to improving transparency with patients, the website can also be used by healthcare professionals to better manage their resources.

• Datos

The Project will use data from the public waiting lists in Catalonia published by CatSalut on a monthly basis. Specifically, monthly data on waiting lists for surgery, specialised outpatient consultations and diagnostic tests will be used from at least 2019 to the present. In the future, the idea could be adapted to other Autonomous Communities.

The Hospital Morbidity Survey: Proposal for the development of a MERN+Python web environment for its analysis and graphical visualisation.

• Team:

Marc Coca Moreno

• What does it consist of?

This is a web environment based on MERN, Python and Pentaho tools for the analysis and interactive visualisation of the Hospital Morbidity Survey microdata. The entire project will be developed with open source and free tools. Both the code and the final product will be openly accessible.

Specifically, it offers 3 major analyses with the aim of improving health planning: 

o   Descriptive: hospital discharge counts and time series.

o   KPIs: standardised rates and indicators for comparison and benchmarking of provinces and communities.

o   Flows: count and analysis of discharges from a hospital region and patient origin. 

All data will be filterable according to dataset variables (age, sex, diagnoses, circumstance of admission and discharge, etc.).

• Data

In addition to the microdata from the INE's Hospital Morbidity Survey, it will also integrate Statistics from the Continuous Register (also from the INE), data from the Ministry of Health's catalogues of ICD10 diagnoses and from the catalogues and indicators of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and of the Autonomous Communities, such as Catalonia: catalogues and stratification tools.

TWINPLAN: Decision support system for accessible and healthy routes

• Team:

TWINPLAN, composed of Ivan Araquistain, Josu Ansola and Iñaki Prieto

• What does it consist of?

This is a web App to facilitate accessibility for people with mobility problems and promote healthy exercise for all citizens. The tool assesses whether your route is affected by any incidents in public lifts and, if so, proposes an alternative accessible route, also indicating the level of traffic (noise) in the area, air quality and cardioprotection points. It also provides contact details for nearby means of transport.

This web App can also be used by public administrations to monitor the use and planning of new accessible infrastructures.

• Data

The prototype will be developed using data from the Digital Twin of Ermua's public lifts, although the model is scalable to other territories. This data is complemented with other public data from Ermua such as the network of environmental sensors, traffic and LurData, among other sources.

These 10 proposals now have several months to develop their proposals, which will be presented on 18 October. The three prototypes best valued by the jury will receive €5,000, €4,000 and €3,000, respectively.

Good luck to all the finalists!

(You can download the accessible version in word here)

The Commission's drive to promote data spaces within the framework of a European Strategy is based on the firm commitment to a regulatory framework that provides regulatory coherence throughout the Union. In particular, the aim is to establish a solid regulation that offers legal certainty to a model based on respect for rights and freedoms. Thus, initially, two initiatives have been promoted to, on the one hand, establish the regulatory bases of the governance model - already definitively adopted by Regulation (EU) 2022/868 of 30 May - and, on the other hand, to establish harmonised rules on the access and fair use of data throughout the Union.

However, while recognising the importance of the design of this general legal architecture, the effective opening and exchange of data requires a more concrete approach that takes into account the specificities of each sectoral area and, in particular, the difficulties and challenges to be faced. Therefore, taking into account the general regulatory framework referred to above, the Commission has presented the first regulatory initiative for one of these areas, related to health data, which is currently under public consultation and negotiation in the Council of the EU and in the European Parliament, and which is part of the project to create a European health data area.

In particular, beyond facilitating the development of cross-border e-services, the proposal aims to address a triple objective:

• Establish a uniform legal framework to facilitate the development, marketing and use of electronic health record systems by establishing a compulsory self-certification scheme for certain systems, which in any case provides for some exceptions, e.g. general purpose software used in healthcare environments.

• Facilitating patients' electronic access to their own data in the framework of healthcare provision (primary use of health data). In this respect, the proposal seeks to strengthen consistency across Member States in protecting health data irrespective of where the healthcare provision takes place or the type of entity carrying it out.

• Encourage the re-use of such data for other secondary purposes. To this end, a specific governance model is envisaged with a specific body at the head - the so-called European Health Data Space Board - and the deployment of duly coordinated state administrative structures - health data access bodies.

We will look at this last point in more detail below.

The promotion of secondary uses

With regard to the re-use of data for purposes other than health care, the proposed regulation is based on the following evidence: although health data are already being collected and processed using electronic means, in many cases, however, access to them is not facilitated to satisfy other purposes of general interest. For this reason, in general, it is intended to establish a broad regulation that facilitates secondary uses of health data. For example, the elaboration of statistics, the development of training and research activities, such as technological innovation -including the training of algorithms- or personalised medicine.

However, for the purposes of denying access to health data, some secondary uses are expressly declared incompatible, such as:

•  The adoption of decisions detrimental to natural persons, meaning not only those that produce legal effects but also those that significantly affect them. In this respect, changes relating to insurance contracts, such as an increase in the amounts to be paid, are specifically highlighted.

• The carrying out of advertising or marketing activities aimed at healthcare professionals, organisations in the sector or natural persons.

•  Making data available to third parties that are not covered by the data permission granted.

• The development of harmful products and services, including in particular illicit drugs, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products or goods or services that contravene public order or morality.

With regard to the parties obliged to share data, in principle the proposed regulation extends to those who collect and process data with public funding, who must make them available to the competent bodies for access to health data in order to facilitate their re-use. However, given their importance in some States, the regulation also extends its scope of application to private parties providing health services - except in the case of micro-enterprises - and also to professional associations. Specifically, this regulation would affect "any natural or legal person, which is an entity or a body in the health or care sector, or performing research in relation to these sectors, as well as Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies who has the right or obligation, in accordance with this Regulation, applicable Union law or national legislation implementing Union law, or in the case of non-personal data, through control of the technical design of a product and related services, the ability to make available, including to register, provide, restrict access or exchange certain data".

Purpose and conditions of access to health data

The proposed Regulation is based on a broad concept of health data, which includes the following categories: 

The regulation is based on a general rule: access to anonymised data as a measure to reduce privacy risks, although a specific regime is also envisaged for personal data. In this case, the request must include an adequate justification and the data will only be provided in pseudonymised form.

As regards the form of access, the particular sensitivity of health data determines that it is proposed that they should be made available through a secure processing environment that complies with the technical and security standards included in the proposal. In particular, the proposal does not allow that, except for non-personal data, the data are transmitted directly to the person who will re-use them.  Furthermore, it provides for processing to take place in secure environments under the control of the access authorities.

Access authorities for health data

From the perspective of the governance model underpinning the proposal, States should have at least one health data access body to provide electronic access to health data for secondary purposes. In the case of multiple bodies due to requirements arising from their political-administrative organisation, one of them will have a coordinating role. Beyond the organisational freedom of the States to choose one or another organisational formula, it is essential that the independence of the coordinating body be guaranteed, without prejudice to the mechanisms of financial or judicial control.

As already indicated, the main purpose of this measure is to ensure a uniform and consistent application of the regulatory framework for access to health data for secondary purposes across the European Union, in particular as regards the protection of personal data in this sector. In this respect, it is proposed that these bodies should be given the powers to verify compliance with these rules and, in particular, to impose sanctions and other measures such as temporary or definitive exclusion from the European Health Data Area of those who do not comply with their obligations.

The harmonisation sought by the proposed Regulation is also envisaged in the establishment of a standardised process for the issuing of permissions to re-use data for secondary purposes. In particular, in cases where anonymised access to the data is not enough, reasons should be given as to why pseudonymised access is necessary. In the latter case, the request must specify the legal basis for requesting access to the data from the perspective of personal data protection law, the secondary purposes for which the data are intended to be re-used, as well as a description of the data and tools necessary for their processing.

Finally, the proposed regulation includes active disclosure obligations addressed to these bodies about the available datasets. This is an essential measure, since the existence of a catalogue of datasets at European level - based on the interconnection of national datasets - would be extremely useful for promoting not only research and innovation but also decision-making at regulatory and political level. Specifically, for each set of available data, the nature of the data, its source and the conditions for making it available will have to be indicated.

In short, this is a certainly innovative initiative to address the regulatory diversity existing in each Member State, which is, however, at an early stage of processing. Precisely, a participation procedure is currently open that allows for the submission of allegations against the initial drafting until 28 July 2022 through a simple procedure accessible via this link.

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Content prepared by Julián Valero, Professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

The deadline for receiving applications to participate in the IV Aporta Challenge closed on 15 February. In total, 38 valid proposals were received in due time and form, all of high quality, whose aim is to promote improvements in the health and well-being of citizens through the reuse of data offered by public administrations for their reuse.

Disruptive technologies, key to extracting maximum value from data

According to the competition rules, in this first phase, participants had to present ideas that identified new opportunities to capture, analyse and use data intelligence in the development of solutions of all kinds: studies, mobile applications, services or websites.

All the ideas seek to address various challenges related to health and wellbeing, many of which have a direct impact on our healthcare system, such as improving the efficiency of services, optimising resources or boosting transparency. Some of the areas addressed by participants include pressure on the health system, diagnosis of diseases, mental health, healthy lifestyles, air quality and the impact of climate change.

Many of the participants have chosen to use disruptive technologies to address these challenges. Among the proposals, we find solutions that harness the power of algorithms to cross-reference data and determine healthy habits or predictive models that allow us to know the evolution of diseases or the situation of the health system. Some even use gamification techniques. There are also a large number of solutions aimed at bringing useful information to citizens, through maps or visualisations.

Likewise, the specific groups at which the solutions are aimed are diverse: we find tools aimed at improving the quality of life of people with disabilities, the elderly, children, individuals who live alone or who need home care, etc.

Proposals from all over Spain and with a greater presence of women

Teams and individuals from all over Spain have been encouraged to participate in the Challenge. We have representatives from 13 Autonomous Communities: Madrid, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Andalusia, Valencia, the Canary Islands, Galicia, Aragon, Extremadura, Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, La Rioja and Asturias.

25% of the proposals were submitted by individuals and 75% by multidisciplinary teams made up of various members. The same distribution is found between individuals (75%) and legal entities (25%). In the latter category, we find teams from universities, organisations linked to the Public Administration and different companies.

It is worth noting that in this edition the number of women participants has increased, demonstrating the progress of our society in the field of equality. Two editions ago, 38% of the proposals were submitted by women or by teams with women members. Now that number has risen to 47.5%. While this is a significant improvement, there is still work to be done in promoting STEM subjects among women and girls in our country.

Jury deliberation begins

Once the proposals have been accepted, it is time for the jury's assessment, made up of experts in the field of innovation, data and health. The assessment will be based on a series of criteria detailed in the rules, such as the overall quality and clarity of the proposed idea, the data sources used or the expected impact of the proposed idea on improving the health and well-being of citizens.

The 10 proposals with the best evaluation will move on to phase II, and will have a minimum of two months to develop the prototype resulting from their idea. The proposals will be presented to the same jury, which will score each project individually. The three prototypes with the highest scores will be the winners and will receive a prize of 5,000, 4,000 and 3,000 euros, respectively.

Good luck to all participants!

15 personalities from the field of innovation, data and health will be in charge of evaluating the proposals received at the IV edition of the Aporta Challenge, the competition that seeks to reward ideas and prototypes that promote improvements in a specific sector -in this case health and well-being- through the use of open data.

The names of the members of the jury have become known through a resolution published in the Red.es electronic headquarters. Among them we find representatives of the Public Administrations, organizations linked to the digital economy and the field of the university and data communities. Do you want to know who they are?

Organizations linked to digital advancement

The jury includes a series of representatives of public organizations at the national and regional level focused on the digitization and digital transformation of our country.

- Alberto Palomo Lozano, Chief Data Officer of the Data Office, dependent on the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (MINECO). Among its functions is the promotion of the sharing, management and use of data throughout all productive sectors.

- Miguel Valle del Olmo, Deputy Director General of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Enabling Technologies f the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (MINECO), in charge of the design and implementation of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy of Spain.

- Santiago Graña Dominguez, Deputy Director General of Planning and Governance of the Digital Administration of MINECO. Its aboutbody in charge of promoting the process of rationalization of information and communication technologies in the scope of the General Administration of the State and its Public Bodies.

- Francisco Javier García Vieira, Director of Digital Public Services of Red.es, a public entity promoter of the Digital Agenda in Spain. The Public service area works in three areas: in education, with Educa en Digital and the Educational Posts at Home; in health, with chronicity projects in Andalusia and Extremadura and with a whole range of local and provincial developments through the Smart Territories.

- María Fernández Rancaño, Deputy Director of Digital Public Services of Red.es, unit in charge of the deployment of technological implementation programs in public services of the Administration.

- Zaida Sampedro Loan, Deputy Director General of Services to Ministries and Digital Administration of Madrid Digital, the Agency for Digital Administration of the Community of Madrid.

Entities in the field of health

Given the sectorial nature of the Challenge, representatives of organizations linked to health and well-being have been invited to form part of the jury.

- Carlos Gallego Pérez, Director of Area IA of the Tic Salut Social Foundation of the Department of Health, of the Generalitat de Catalunya. This organismpromotes the development and use of ICT in health and social welfare, functioning as an observatory of new trends and innovation. Among its projects we find initiatives to bring the health field Artificial intelligence and Emerging technologies like 5G.

- Carlos Luis Parra Calderon, Head of the Technological Innovation Section of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital of the Andalusian Health Service. This center has a R + D + i area focused on Learning Health Systems projects, Language Technologies or Big Data for Healthcare Management, among others.

- Noemí Cívicos Villa, General Director of Digital Health and Information Systems for the National system of health of the Ministry of Health. These are organizations that encompass health benefits and services in Spain.

Business associations

The Aporta Challenge seeks to highlight the power of data as the basis for business models that drive the economy. Therefore, the representatives of business entities could not be absent from the jury.

- Antonio Cimorra Boats, Director of Digital Transformation and Enabling Technologies of Ametic (Multisectoral Association of Information Technology, Communications and Electronics Companies). This association represents companies of all sizes linked to the Spanish digital technology industry.

- Olga Quirós Bonet. Secretary General of ASEDIE (Multisectoral Information Association). ASEDIE represents infomediary companies that, from different sectors, reuse information to create value-added products and services.

- Víctor María Calvo-Sotelo Ibáñez-Martín, Managing Director of Digital (Spanish Association for Digitization), which brings together companies present throughout the digital value chain. DigitalEs is part of the Advisory Council for the Digital Transformation of the Government and is a member of the CEOE board of directors.

Universities and data communities

Students and developers are, among others, two of the target audiences of this competition, and for this reason it was also important to have the participation of data communities and universities.

- Emilio López Cano, Contracted Professor of the Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering of the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid. Emilio is also the President of R-Hispano, a community of users and developers whose objective is to promote the advancement of the knowledge and use of the programming language in R.

- Fernando Diaz de Maria, Professor and Head of the Multimedia Processing Group of the Higher Polytechnic School of the Carlos III University of Madrid. This entity has an attractive training offer in data, both in degrees like in postgraduate.

- Maria Sanchez Gonzalez, Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism at the University of Malaga and co-organizer of DataBeers Malaga, a non-profit initiative specialized in dynamic events related to the universe of data, including data open data.

The Secretariat of the Jury, with voice and vote, falls to Sonia Castro García-Muñoz, Coordinator of the Aporta Initiative in the Directorate of Digital Public Services of Red.es.

The registration closing date has been extended to February 15

In the same resolution, the closing date for submitting proposals has also been extended to February 15, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. Those citizens who wish to participate in the Challenge must present before that date an idea for a solution that promotes improvements in the field of health and well-being, using at least one set of data generated by Public Administrations, whether national or international

All the available information is published, together with the bases, in the section Aporta Challenge.

In recent months there have been a number of important announcements related to the construction and exploitation of infrastructures and datasets related to health research. These initiatives aim to make data a vital part of a health system that is currently not extracting the maximum possible value from it.

The health data policy landscape, globally in general and in Europe in particular, is highly fragmented and regulatory inconsistency hampers innovation. While at least in Europe there are adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, trust in the whole data ecosystem is still generally weak. As a result, willingness to share data at all levels is often low. But this situation seems to be changing at great speed, as the high number of initiatives we are seeing being born or developed in 2021 seems to demonstrate.

UK aims to position itself as a world leader

For example, mindful of the limitations we have described in the data ecosystem, the UK government has published in June 2021 the draft of its new strategy "Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data", which aims to capitalise on the work done during the pandemic to improve health and care services.

Although it is still in draft form - and has been criticised by privacy experts and patients' rights groups for not clarifying who will have access to the data - it makes no secret of the ambition to make the UK a world leader in health innovation through the use of data. The strategy aims to put people in control of their own data, while supporting the NHS in creating a modernised system fit for the 21st century that is able to open up and harness its vast data assets.

Another interesting initiative is the work being undertaken in 2021 by the Open Data Institute (ODI) as part of a wider research project commissioned by the pharmaceutical company Roche. ODI is mapping the use of health data standards across the European region in order to design a "Data governance playbook for data-driven healthcare projects", which can be used and shared globally.

July 2021 also saw the announcement of the commissioning of what has become the UK's most powerful supercomputer (and 41st in the world rankings), the Cambridge-1per. It will be dedicated to health sciences and to facilitating the resolution of problems related to medical care. With a $100 million investment from US company Nvidia, its creators hope it will help make the process of disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment better, faster and cheaper.

It is known, for example, that the pharmaceutical company GSK is already working with Nvidia to put its massive datasets to work to accelerate research into new drugs and vaccines. GSK will use Cambridge-1 to help discover new therapies faster by combining genetic and clinical data.

The use of data and artificial intelligence in healthcare is enjoying a period of huge growth in the UK that will undoubtedly be accelerated by these new initiatives. Some of these massive patient datasets such as the UK Biobank are not new, having been founded in 2012, but they are taking on renewed prominence in this context. The UK Biobank, available to researchers worldwide, includes anonymised medical and lifestyle records of half a million middle-aged UK patients and is regularly augmented with additional data.

The United States relies on private sector innovations

The United States has a strong innovation in open data from the private sector that is also evident when it comes to health data. For example, the well-known Data for Good project, which Facebook launched in 2017, has placed a strong emphasis on pandemic response in its activities. For example, by means of maps on population movement, they have contributed to a better understanding of the coronavirus crisis, always with an approach that aims to preserve people's privacy. In this type of project, where the input data is highly sensitive, the appropriate implementation of privacy-enhancing technologies for users is of great importance.

The European Union announces important steps

The European Union, on the other hand, is taking important steps, such as progress on the European Health Data Space, one of the Commission's priorities for the 2019-2025 period. We recall that the common European health data space will promote better exchange and access to different types of health data (electronic health records, genomic data, patient registry data, etc.), not only to support healthcare delivery but also for health research and policy making in the field of health.

The public consultation aimed at ensuring that all possible views are considered in the design of a new legal framework for a European health data space - and ensuring transparency and accountability - closed just a few weeks ago and the results, as well as the proposed EU legislation, are expected to be published in the last quarter. This new legislation is expected to provide a decisive impetus within the European Union for the publication of new health datasets.

For the time being, the proposal for a Regulation on European data governance (Data Governance Act) is available, which addresses such relevant and sensitive issues as the transfer of data from the public sector for re-use, the exchange of data between companies for remuneration or the transfer of data for altruistic purposes. Clarifying the regulatory framework for all these issues will undoubtedly contribute to fostering innovation in the field of health.

Spain also joins in boosting the use of health data

In Spain, although with some delay, important initiatives are also beginning to move, the fruits of which we will see in the coming years. Among the investments that the Spanish government will make thanks to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, for example, the creation of a healthcare data lake has recently been announced with the aim of facilitating the development and implementation of massive data processing projects.

In some cases, regional health services, such as Andalusia, are already working on the implementation of innovative advanced analytics techniques for real use cases. Thus, in the project to implement a corporate advanced analytics solution, the Andalusian Health System plans to deploy, among others, recommendation engines to optimise waiting lists, computer vision techniques to assist in breast cancer screening or segmentation techniques for chronic patients.

One of the positive effects of the global pandemic caused by Covid-19 is that awareness of the need for an open and trusted data ecosystem that benefits the health of all has been amplified. The convergence of medical knowledge, technology and data science has the potential to revolutionise patient care, and the pandemic may provide a definitive boost to open health data. For the moment, as reported in the study "Analysis of the current state of health data openness at regional level through open data portals" and despite the remaining challenges, the progress made in health data openness, especially in the most advanced regions, is promising.

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Content prepared by Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation and Digitalization.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

In the last year, we have seen how decisions on health matters have marked the political, social and economic agenda of our country, due to the global pandemic situation resulting from COVID-19. Decisions taken on the basis of public data on cumulative incidence, hospital bed occupancy or vaccination rates have marked our daily lives.

This fact highlights the importance of open health data for the management and decision-making of our governments, but it is also fundamental as a basis for solutions that help both patients and doctors.

The types of data used in the field of health and wellbeing are numerous: results of medical studies and research, anonymised patient records, data on patients' habits (such as how much exercise we do or how much sleep we get) or data linked to health services and management. All these data are of great value that can be exploited by healthcare professionals, providers and citizens alike.

How have health services been using open data?

According to the study "The Open Data Impact Map", a project of the Open Data for Development Network (OD4D), health-related organisations use open data mainly for the purpose of optimising their management and organisation of resources. Of the 124 organisations interviewed in 2018, only 19 indicated that they use open data for the development of health products and services, and only 13 for research. The same study indicates that the most widely used open data are those directly related to health, and that very few organisations combine them with datasets from other themes - mainly geospatial or demographic or social indicators - to generate deeper and more detailed knowledge.

However, the opportunities in this field are vast, as shown below.

 

Click here to see the infographic in full size and in its accessible version

Examples of services based on open health data

The situation seems to be changing and there is increasing momentum for the implementation of applications, services or projects based on data in this field. Europe is committed to the creation of data spaces focused on the field of health, as part of its strategy to build a European cloud, while the Spanish government has included the promotion of Digital Health solutions in its Digital Spain 2025 strategy. Among the actions envisaged by our country is the streamlining of information systems to enable better data sharing and interoperability.

Applications that collect health services

When it comes to health apps, the most common are those that help citizens find local healthcare providers that meet their needs. An example is 24-hour pharmacies in Tudela and la Ribera or the search engine for health centres in the community of Madrid. Thanks to these, patients can find out where the centres are located and find out information of interest, such as opening hours. Some applications include additional services, such as Salud Responde, from the Junta de Andalucía, which allows the request and modification of medical appointments, improving the efficiency of the system.

But such services can also provide important information for more efficient resource management, especially when cross-referenced with other datasets. For example, Pharmacies, Health Centres and Health Areas of the Government of Cantabria, developed by Esri, includes information on the territorial organisation of health resources according to geographical, demographic, epidemiological, socio-economic, labour, cultural, climatological and transport factors. Its main objective is not only to facilitate citizens' access to this information, but also to ensure that "the provision of health services is carried out in the best conditions of accessibility, efficiency and quality".

The Health, environmental and socio-economic atlas of the Basque Country by small areas shows a series of maps with the aim of "monitoring geographical inequalities in health, socioeconomic and environmental indicators in the Basque Country, taking into account the gender perspective". This information is very useful for service managers in trying to promote greater equity in access to healthcare.

Disease prevention tools

There are also applications on the market aimed at disease prevention, such as ZaraHealth, a web application that displays real-time data on water quality, air quality and pollen levels in the city of Zaragoza. The user can set a series of thresholds for pollen and pollution levels, so that a warning is issued when they are reached. In this way, they can avoid going outdoors or exercising in areas that do not meet their needs. APCYL: Allergy to pollen CyL has the same goal.

Another important aspect of our health is our diet, a key factor in the prevention of various pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes. Websites such as Mils, which offers detailed nutritional information on food, can help us to eat more healthily.

Services for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases

Open data can help assess health outcomes, develop more effective treatments and predict disease outbreaks.

In the field of mental health, for example, we find Mentalcheck, an app that enables psychological assessments and self-reporting via mobile devices. It aims to improve Ecological Momentary Assessment and Intervention (EMA and EMI). The application incorporates open data on medications and mental health services from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It also allows the integration of psychological and physiological data to generate correlations.

Another example is Qmenta, a company focused on analysing brain data, using MRI and related clinical data. In recent months they have also incorporated open data related to COVID-19 in some of their work. Through medical image processing algorithms, they seek to accelerate the development of new therapies for neurological diseases.

Up-to-date information on diseases or system needs

Another area where open data can drive improvements is in the reporting of certain situations. This has become especially important in the context of the global pandemic where citizens demand constant and updated information. In this sense, we find the scorecard of the Ministry of Health at state level and different regional initiatives, such as Curve in Aragon: Evolution of Coronavirus in Aragon, or Evolution of the coronavirus in Castilla y León. These are just a couple of examples, but it should be noted that there are numerous efforts in this area, as the Ministry of Health reports on its website.

It is also important to make information on medicines transparent, both for doctors and patients, by facilitating comparisons. In this regard, the Nomenclature of Medicines shows more than 20,000 medicines marketed in Spain with Social Security coverage, offering information on price, presentation, links to the package leaflet, safety notes and active ingredients, among others.

Finally, it is also important to provide information on resource needs, for example, doctor vacancies or the state of blood reserves.

Data in general has driven important advances in improving health outcomes, from increased access to care to medical research and diagnosis. Open data is a key ingredient that can help further enrich these solutions with new variables. It is therefore essential that more and more health and wellness data will be opened, following a set of guidelines and standards that ensure the privacy and security of patients. In this sense, the report "Open data and health: technological context, stakeholders and legal framework" includes information on what types of data can be opened and what the legal framework says about it.

Do you know more use cases of open data applied to the health and welfare sector? Leave us a comment or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

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Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

If there is a field in which data are of great importance, it is in health. Through indicators obtained from various diagnostic tests and our history, doctors can know what is happening in our body, decide what treatment we should take and estimate how we are going to evolve. But for their estimates to be correct, external data have also been necessary, which have contributed to the acquisition of greater knowledge about different ailments.

When we talk about open data in health we refer to both medical data and other related data that can also have an impact on the health of patients and the services provided. Some examples are:

• Data from medical studies and research. The sharing of clinical and research data has several benefits: it enhances the reproducibility of trials, their verification and reliability, while creating opportunities for new discoveries, among other advantages. In this sense, Directive (EU) 2019/1024, relating to open data and the reuse of public sector information, obliges Member States to adopt open access policies for publicly funded research data. In addition, there are numerous initiatives in the world that promote the opening of this type of data such as the Research Data Alliance. In our country we find proposals such as Datasea, wave Maredata network, which has a guide to guide the opening of these data.
• Well-being related data. The environment, the diet we eat, the sleep pattern, the balance between work and private life, the stress or the physical exercise we do are also patterns closely linked to our state of health, since they can affect our immune system or even our mental health. Many times this type of data is obtained through surveys and statistics that link health and well-being. In Spain, the INE, for example, carries out the five-year National Health Survey, where information is asked about perceived morbidity and use of health services, but also about lifestyle habits and preventive activities. These data are provided in the open so that they can be reused in various studies.
• Data related to health services and management, such as the location of medical centers or pharmacies, schedules or complaints received in hospitals. All of them can be very useful for patients, but also for public bodies when making decisions that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the health service. These data are often provided by autonomous entities, responsible for their management.
• Patient records. Patient data is also a great source of knowledge, which can be extrapolated to other cases. During the COVID pandemic we have seen how it was necessary to have as much information as possible about the evolution of the disease, since doctors and epidemiologists faced an unknown and documented ailment. The Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI) has developed a Registration on-line with epidemiological, clinical, treatment, laboratory and radiographic parameters. Another initiative of interest is HealthData 29, a platform that allows healthcare providers and other entities to safely make their open data sets available to the community for research purposes, and which currently has data from LaLiga, Sanitas and HM hospitals. Both are data-sharing initiatives where you need to register or write to request the information.

It should be noted that the anonymization of data - always necessary when talking about open data - is essential to respect patient privacy and sometimes makes opening this type of information difficult.

More than 16,000 health and wellness data at datos.gob.es

In datos.gob.es there is 9,530 data sets in the health category and 7,388 in society and well-being. While the first category includes data directly related to health, such as medical services, health surveys or death data, the second includes data related to active aging, marginalization, personal autonomy, dependency or disability, among other categories more related to society. These categories respond to what is indicated in the Technical Standard for Interoperability for the Reuse of Information Resources.

The main publishers of this type of data are the Canary Institute of statistics, the Statistics National Institute and the Sociological Research Center.

From these data sets, below, we collect the most important ones together with the format in which you can consult them:

1.Statewide

• Ministry of Health. Evolution of the COVID-19 disease. PDF, HTML, CSV.
• Ministry of Health. Vaccination strategy for the coronavirus (COVID-19). HTML.
• INE. Registered physicians by year and sex. CSV, XLSX, XLS, HTML, JSON, PC-Axis
• Institute for the Elderly and Social Services. Management of the System for Autonomy and Attention to Dependency (SAAD). Pdf, XLS
• INE. Statistics of domestic violence and gender violence. HTML.

2.At the CC.AA. level

• Junta Castilla y León. COVID-19 vaccination in Castilla y León. XLSX, CSV.
• Madrid's Community. Register of social services centers. JSON, CSV.
• Generalitat of Catalunya. Hotlines against sexist violence 900 900 120. XML, RDF-XML, JSON, CSV.
• Xunta de Galicia. Map of the health services of Galicia. KML.
• Autonomous Community of Castilla-La Mancha.Accommodation resources for people with physical disabilities in Castilla-La Mancha. XLS, CSV.

3.Locally

• Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council. Drinking water sources in the municipality. OCTET-STREAM.
• Valencia City Council. Noise map for 24 hours. OCTET-STREAM, WFS, WMS.
• Alcobendas City Council.Pollen concentrations. XML, XLS, JSON, ODS, CSV.
• City of Madrid. Inspections for official food control in food establishments. XLS, CSV
• Zaragoza City Council. Pharmacy. API.
• Lorca City Council. Association of social minorities. HTML, XLS, JSON, XML, CSV.

 

This data can be reused in research and to create services and products related to health, such as those collected in this article.

Do you know of any initiative to open health data? You can share it with us in the comments or send us an email to contacto@datos.gob.es. We will be delighted to read you