William Heisel Director of Global Services at IHME Interview with Matt Bird at Humanity 2.0 | Traders Network Show – Vatican City
Contributed by: Show Editorial Team
William Heisel, Director of Global Services at IHME with with Matt Bird at Humanity 2.0 (Vatican City)
HIGHLIGHTS
-IHME is the biggest health catalog of global health data in the world
-IHME has data from every country and 900 locations around the globe
-IHME goal is to provide the world’s best health evidence
FULL COVERAGE
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: William Heisel, Director of Global Services at IHME with Matt Bird
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 00:00
Welcome back to the Traders Network Show and our continued coverage of Humanity 2.0 my next guests is the director of global services for IHME Will Heisel. Will, welcome to the show. So, you know, I wanted a chance, I was hoping to get to yesterday and there was a lot going on and, and obviously I wasn’t able to and I’m really glad that you came to the studios. You came to the Institute. I heard you had an interview with Matt Saunders downstairs and thanks for coming upstairs, as we’re wrapping up our coverage here in Italy. So let’s get right to it. Yeah. You came all the way out from Washington state, my hometown. The IHME is based in the University of Washington. You’re a Northwest native. What brought you out to the humanity 2.0, it’s a long way to come.
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 00:48
We’re just incredibly excited by the mission and our goal at each meet is to provide the world’s best health evidence. And then have it be used to improve health. And that’s exactly what it seems Humanity 2.0 is poised to do.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 01:04
Yeah, they certainly have got a lot of innovators and thought leaders that I think could contribute to, you know, the, the health data side of things. I think that’s where you’re going with it. Blockchain certainly contributing a lot to, uh, to that cause are you guys using any blockchain currently or is that part of the initiative or?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 01:42
IHME is a data cataloging and analytics shop. We have the biggest health catalog of global health data in the world. So we have data on every country in the planet and now more than 900 locations around the world over time, over a space, across genders. And we can literally tell you anything you want to know about health too, down to the province level in China to the prefecture level in Japan.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 01:50
Are you working with pharmaceutical companies to help go with, you know, customized medicines and identify, you know, disease type by DNA. I mean, is stuff going that macro?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 01:59
So, one of the things that’s been exciting in the last few years at to me is that previously we didn’t have a way to work with the private sector, but now we do. If the private sector wants to come with us, come to us and work with us, they can license access to our data and we can do studies for them that allow them to ask these what if questions? What if you introduce a new therapy? What if you try to encourage a behavior change? What if we set a new guideline?
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 02:20
How deep can you parse and sort that data?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 02:22
So we can go down currently to the zip code level if we have enough resources.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 02:28
Can I get into that data into the health records in the DNA? Can I get down into DNA type?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 02:32
We use, uh, some genetic information to inform the estimates, but we’re not providing DNA level information.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 02:40
Okay. Okay. Interesting. Um, what did you take away from the Humanity 2.0 event.
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 02:45
So coming here I had a sense of what they were trying to do, especially around maternal and child health. But then throughout the day, in the form, I realized it was even bigger than what we had anticipated. And they really are interested in human flourishing from the beginning all the way through course of life. So our piece of it, being able to track the progress through the data we think is incredibly important. But at the same time just as important are these really powerful questions about what we are doing with technology and where is everything leading us.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 03:04
How do you see the I H and me participating in future events and initiatives?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 03:17
So one of the thing we’re developing currently something called the maternal health Atlas and our hope is that it’ll be a useful tool for the project that it’s now part of, but also there’ll be a useful tool for Humanity 2.0 and not only in tracking progress, but also in showing the public the stories that we can tell success stories about what’s working in maternal and child health. And then also where we have challenges. It’s amazing.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 03:38
So I got to ask, so what is next for the IHME what is the next frontier you guys are planning to the growth next growth stage for you guys?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 03:45
One of the things we’re really hoping to do is be able to answer some of these questions around what if, if people often ask, well you’ve told me that there’s a problem because you’ve shown me the data, what do I do? So we want to do more and more of that type of work. Be able to say specifically how can you target your resources, how you can target your funding, what will give you the biggest bang for the buck in health?
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 03:54
Before we cut to commercial break, is there anything you’d like to say?
William Heisel – Director of Global Services, IHME: 04:08
The moment is really now if we want to eliminate child mortality, if we want to drive that number down from 5 million to zero, we can do it. If we act now, if we want to eliminate maternal mortality and improve women’s lives around the world, we can do it. If we act now we have the resources, we have the global will. It just, we need to follow the data, we need to make the right choices and the right investments, and I think we can do it.
Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 04:30
That’s terrific. That’s terrific. Well listen Bill, they should come on the show. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for your time. And I have a safe flight back. We’re heading out tomorrow. Are you going out flying out tomorrow? Yeah, it’s a haul. All right cause then everybody, that’s a Bill Heisel. He is the director of global services with IHME you’re watching a Trader’s Network Show on Equities.com it’s syndicated partners and we’ll be right back after these messages. Don’t go away.
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