Solving America's health problems? There's an app for that

We live in a digital age – laptops, smart phones, tablets. Most of us have no idea how these things really work, but we depend on them – especially in times of crisis.

When a massive earthquake struck Haiti last year, a group of volunteer programmers came together in Washington D.C. for two days to build mobile apps to help quickly gather information on the ground.

An intensive gathering of programmers is called a code-a-thon, and these days, after a disaster, they’re not uncommon. But now, there are code-a-thons taking place that address another sort of emergency – America’s health epidemics. Here’s Aneesh Chopra, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States:

ANEESH CHOPRA: I can’t tell you what new iPhone app will hit the market that will convince me to reduce my intake on that grande, nonfat vanilla latte that I seem to consume on a regular basis, but there are those that are building those innovations to make sure that we remain healthy.

Some of those people recently gathered at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View. It was a competitive code-a-thon, including 130 programmers, designers, doctors, nurses and researchers. KALW’s Sindya Bhanoo has the story.

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SINDYA BHANOO: Thirteen programmers are hovering over their laptops around a table. They’re trying to save the world. One app at a time.

ERIC HEKLER: Today we’re working on developing a health app that tracks health behaviors of interest so maybe physical activity, eating or sleep – tries to create a feedback for that in visually stunning ways, is what we’re shooting for.

That’s Eric Hekler. He’s a clinical psychologist at Stanford University. He’s teaming up with programmers to build the app. They have the technical know-how, and he has the clinical expertise.

HEKLER: We’ve got several different people working, we’ve got you know several app developers doing android, doing back-end and front-end stuff, we’ve got a graphical designer, I’m a clinical psychologist by training and so we’re all kind of working to come together to come up with this project.

That is, working together for a common cause for one day only. Most of the people on this thirteen-member team are strangers.

HEKLER: So we basically showed up this morning and a bunch of people threw out ideas and this one person who’s been taking charge of our group, he pitched an idea and all of us said that sounds fun, lets push forward on that and that’s pretty much how we formed the group. It’s a quick deadline, so I’m hungry to get back and continue the work I was doing.

The contest runs from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. That’s it. One intensive workday.

And so the coding continues. It’s a computer programmer party. And there’s a purpose. Code-a-thons are making the world healthier in different ways. One resulted in the popular mobile app Happy Feet, which tracks footsteps. Another app displays obesity levels in different neighborhoods and counties.

CHIA HWU: I have been to a few code-a-thons.

Chia Hwu is a chemist by trade with a marketing background.

HWU: I go to a lot of developer events, I know a lot of technical people in Silicon Valley, and so, I go to a lot of these sort of hacker events or coding events.

Hwu is here working with a developer on another health app. This one is a game.

HWU: Our project is called CubeQuest and it came out of my own realization that as I’ve gotten older and gotten into jobs, I end up sitting all day on my computer. And when I got home, I’d play these little casual games like Angry Birds, or, like, a Bejeweled kind of a game.

I was thinking well, what if I took that time and was motivated to go walk around the block or maybe do some stretching or movement-oriented. So it came out of my own realization I was getting out of breath running up the stairs. What if I can make that a little more fun and a little more like a game? So I could game myself into thinking how to become a little more active, and a little more healthy.

Hwu’s game gives people points and incentives, like virtual badges, to do healthy things, like take a walk around the block or do a few stretches.

HWU: Of course, we’d love to win, it’ d be awesome if we did, but mostly we’re here to build our app and we really just want it to be fun.

At least one person here is hoping for a bit more than that. Stacey Elmer works with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She’s chatting up teams to find out how her department might make use of Silicon Valley’s innovation.

STACY ELMER: We’re here launching an idea for a challenge related to connecting individuals in times of emergency and creating a platform for communication and for location of missing persons.

...Like, if an earthquake strikes the Bay Area and the standard means of contact break down.

ELMER: For instance, cellphone companies get completely overwhelmed when disaster strikes because people are calling each other and saying, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Is John okay? Is Anne okay?" And people who need to get through to emergency lines can’t get through.

As the official government rep, Elmer is impressed by the potential in this room.

ELMER:This is the first time from our office’s standpoint we’re engaging with the tech community in this way, where’s it’s just a very open forum of brainstorming and solving problems. What I take away from it is that a lot of the problems we have could be well-addressed by opening it up to a community of, you know there’s all kind of people here. I’ve talked with psychologists and to doctors and to IT developers.

And right now, they’re all working feverishly.

At precisely 5:30, the teams are told to stop working. Every team takes a few minutes to present its app. Then Health 2.0 Co-Chairman Matthew Holt takes the stage to announce the results.

Chia Hwu’s team, Cube Quest, is one of the winners. During the 8.5 hour code-a-thon, they were able to build the skeleton of their game. This basic version gives a user an avatar that gets stronger or weaker based on the number of healthy tasks they complete. Hwu and her teammate will continue to work on the idea full-time.

It’s been a successful code-a-thon, and organizer Holt is thrilled. But he notes that when it comes to health, at the end of the day, creative programming doesn’t provide all the answers.

MATTHEW HOLT: Adding technology to it is going to help, but it isn’t going to fix it. Now we obviously had a big and contentious argument about health care coverage last year, which some people thought didn’t go far enough, apparently lot of people thought went too far. So technology isn’t going to fix all of that. But certainly it can help, and it can help raise expectations.

If the right programs are in place. Many are being produced, right now, in Silicon Valley. And the government’s investment in future code-a-thons confirms the long-held dot-com belief: that you can work hard and play hard and make a big difference in the world – all at the same time.

In Mountain View, I’m Sindya Bhanoo for Crosscurrents.

This story originally aired on February 10, 2011.