Global Alert and Response in the 21st century

On Tuesday 21 April 2009 the CDC confirmed two cases of swine flu in California. I read about it on my BlackBerry while sitting in a meeting at WHO in Geneva the next day. This meeting was convened by the WHO to try to figure out how information and communication technology (ICT) could improve WHOs response to health emergencies.

Google flu trends has been shown to be remarkably accurate in reporting the location and time of flu infections. It looks at people searching Google for “flu”, “cough”, “headache”, “runny nose”, etc. It gives near real time results.

My daughter who lives in California is traveling in Italy. A friend of hers in California shares a new song with Laura who receives it on her iPhone.

Most people understand that the Internet sends more information faster. Most people don't understand the ramifications of the global peer to peer connectivity provided by the Internet.

The International Health Regulations (IHR) are perfectly designed for the world 50 years ago. They impose a strong filter at the source (an elaborate flow chart to decide when WHO should be notified of an event) and a “chain of command” of reporting to the country office, regional office, then headquarters. The information is then analyzed and WHO decides what information will be made public.

This has several problems:
Filters
When communication was limited by low bandwidth and slow speeds, it made sense to impose strong filters at the source to avoid overwhelming the system. In the age of the Internet, this only serves to filter out most of the potentially valuable information.

Control
The WHO assumes that it can control information. In the age of the Internet, nobody can control information and if you try to control information you become irrelevant.

Peer to peer
The Internet is not just more and faster information. It means that everyone is always connected to everyone else. The IHR hierarchical model which uses a chain of command, control of information, and a limited pool of experts only serves to make it irrelevant. The rest of the world will know about the event via Google, Twitter, and YouTube long before WHO makes its pronouncement through the press.

To make the IHR relevant and useful WHO needs to:
Open up communication. You can't and shouldn't control information.
Remove the filters. You can and should receive more information sources.
Use peer to peer. Our connected world offers a rich collaborative workspace... use it.