Children’s Hospital Boston, in association with Harvard Medical School, just launched an updated version of HealthMap, a web-based global surveillance tool used to monitor infectious diseases and their effect on the populations where outbreaks occur. Co-created by John Brownstein, PhD of Children’s Informatics Program, the webpage is an easy to read site that operates in real time and lets users track current disease outbreaks by pulling data and news stories from over 20,000 sources.
With as many as 150,000 visitors a day, HealthMap has users from all reaches of the medical community. From concerned moms keeping an eye on a rash of new chicken pox cases in their hometown to members of the World Health Organization collecting aggregated data on the pattern of H1N1 outbreaks in rural China, HealthMap is a user-friendly way for people of all backgrounds to quickly assess data and news stories on infectious disease, from anywhere in the world as they are occurring.
In recognition of its innovative design and potential to benefit the public at large, HealthMap will be featured as part of the Smithsonian’s National Design Triennial’s Why Design Now? exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Why Design Now? is a collection of work by designers from many backgrounds, operating in various medias, all using their talents to address social and environmental challenges.