The know-how network

Hashtag campaigns and “likes” on Twitter or Facebook can draw attention to pressing societal problems, but they don’t necessarily mobilize people and resources to tackle those problems. A new online social network could change that.

The Knowledge Ecology Engine (KEE) is a network that uses artificial intelligence to bring together people, information, and even physical tools and equipment in order to address problems such as drug abuse, environmental protection, and economic development, according to a report by tech website Fast Company.

Just as Facebook and LinkedIn recommend potential connections based on your profile and previous connections, KEE recommends people with related expertise or similar work backgrounds, with the goal of building virtual teams that can tackle societal challenges. It can also suggest information to help those teams—such as research papers or databases—in a manner similar to the way Amazon suggests purchases based on your purchase history.

The concept for KEE was based on work in 2012 to combat the drug addiction epidemic in South Florida using epidemiological models. Countries with similar drug problems in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean heard of the tools and wanted to apply them locally.

“That really was the impetus for the KEE community,” Raymond Ferrero, an attorney who focuses on crisis intervention in mental health and substance abuse and a co-founder of KEE, told Fast Company. “What we realized was that we needed a better and more sophisticated way for these levels of professionals to engage each other and interact.”

Ferrero, together with collaborator and software developer Rob Hust, is working to make KEE easy to use for people in other countries who have limited technical resources. The website handles the heavy computing involving language translation and artificial intelligence: Users need only a web browser to open pages that are optimized for limited bandwidth.

Anyone can join KEE right now (for a $60 fee), but once the network reaches 10,000 members, it will be open by invitation only, with a cap of 1 million participants. Ferrero told Fast Company: “This is a community that we want to populate with passionate people who are problem solvers, people who get things done.”

Doctor’s orders

Filling a doctor’s prescription in the future may involve not just drugstores but downloads. Hospitals are developing new smartphone apps to help patients manage everything from cancer pain to heart disease. The apps feed patient information back to their doctors between visits.

Because these apps are prescribed by physicians and used under medical supervision, researchers believe patients are more likely to integrate them into their daily routines than they would other self-help health apps, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Pain management apps such as ePal use educational videos and supportive messages to help patients stay on their medication schedule and deal with nausea and other side effects of chemotherapy. The ePal app allows patients to fill medication requests as well as keep pain diaries they can share with their doctors. It can provide just enough continuity between doctor visits to help patients stick to their medication regimen.

“If we can have more points of contact in between visits, we can see who might be developing pain at a crisis level, control it better and keep them out of the hospital,” Mihir Kamdar, the director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s cancer pain clinic, told the Journal. —M.C.