ITU/SFL PROFICIENCY EXAM June 4, 2015

SESSION II

Improving Race Cars and Saving Lives

Good morning! I’m glad to see that everyone arrived here safe and sound. Let me introduce
myself: I work on the support team for a professional race car driver, and today I would like to give you
some information about Formula 1 race car driving. After that, I’ll explain how developments in race car
driving have helped save the lives of babies with severe medical problems. You probably never expected a
connection between race car driving and saving the lives of infants, but I hope to show you how technology
developed for race cars is being used in hospitals to help babies who need intensive medical care.

Let me start by giving you some information about the cars used in Formula 1 racing. We make a
new car each year for the beginning of the race season, and then we spend the rest of the year trying to
make that car better and faster. Then the next year, we start all over again. A race car is an incredibly
complicated machine. The engine alone has more than 6,000 components, the electronics system has
8,000, and in total the car has about 50,000 parts. That means that there are 8,000 potential electronic
problems, and 50,000 things in total that could go wrong, so racing is very much about attention to detail. In
addition to paying attention to detail, we are always looking for improvement. We're always trying to make
our cars better by making them faster and more reliable. Because of that, every two weeks during the
season, we redisign almost 5,000 new components to improve a car. Astoundingly, about 10 percent of the
race car changes every two weeks of the racing season.

We make many changes because of our advanced data collection system. Each race car has 120
sensors measuring many different things. These 120 sensors measure all sorts of things, and that data is
collected and stored. We manage to collect two to four megabits of data per second. Collecting two to four
megabits a second means that a race car sends 750 million pieces of information during just one race.
That’s many more pieces of data than the number of words you’ll speak in your entire lifetime, which is
generally fewer than 100 million.

However, it's not enough just to have data and store it; you need to use the data that you collect.
We spend a lot of time and effort turning the data into information that is useful to us. We try to learn things
like whether the engine is maintaining maximum performance throughout the race, how fast the tires are
wearing out, and whether the race car is using too much or too little oil. The most challenging part of our
job is taking all the bits of information and turning them into useful data about engine performance, tire
quality, oil use and other information that enables us to make a car go faster and run better.

Now I want to look at using the data collecting system in hospitals, which do not seem to have any
connection to race car driving. Imagine that you are in a hospital, looking after a three-month-old patient.
This baby is having heart problems, and suddenly everything starts going wrong. The baby starts having a
heart attack. This seems like an unpredictable event; you don’t think of a heart attack as an event that you
can see coming. However, in a typical infant heart attack, there is often some unusual activity beginning
five minutes before the event. For example, in the five minutes before a heart attack, there may be changes
in the heart rate – it may start going faster then slow down. But are these increases and decreases in heart
ITU/SFL PROFICIENCY EXAM June 4, 2015
SESSION II

rate recorded? And does the hospital have a system to turn this data into useful predictions? The basic
questions a hospital needs to consider are whether they are collecting enough data and if they have a
system which uses the data they are recording to make accurate predictions.

Let me tell you about the Birmingham Children's Hospital, where I help patients like this three-
month-old baby. I have taken the data collection system used in Formula 1 racing, and I have installed the
same system on this hospital’s computers. The hospital now has the exact same data collection technology
of the most advanced Formula 1 race cars. Using this system, data can be collected from bedside
instruments and looked at in real time. Even more importantly, it can be stored so that the hospital can
learn from it. For example, I have worked with hospital staff to develop an application which quickly finds
the normal heart and breathing patterns for each patient. If the hospital has that data, they can determine
when things start to go wrong and when a doctor needs to get involved. In addition to that, I have worked
with hospital staff to install a real-time link between ambulances and the hospital using 3G-supported
telephones. Now data can be sent from an ambulance to the hospital and back again, and this two-way
communication makes the ambulance almost as good as a bed in the hospital.

But collecting data isn’t enough, so now let’s look at how Birmingham Children’s Hospital is utilizing
all this data. The hospital is now making good use of the data that is being collected. Both in the hospital
and in an ambulance, they can collect data about the oxygen level within the blood, about a patient’s heart
rate, and about the breathing rate. Based on the information that is collected, a computer program draws
three lines, one for the oxygen level in the blood, one for the heart rate, and one for the breathing rate. As
long as these lines are within normal ranges for the child, they remain green. However, a green line turns
blue when it goes a bit outside the normal range. Blue means caution, much like a yellow traffic light. If a
line goes further from normal, it turns red, which means a doctor should come immediately and monitor the
situation. The blue line is an indication of when patterns start to change, and as long as the line stays blue,
a staff member with less training can monitor the situation, but red means close supervision by a doctor is
needed because emergency medical care may be necessary at any moment.

I want to conclude by saying what a huge difference using this technology can make in people’s
lives. Using the technology developed in Formula 1 racing, hospitals are able to display data more clearly
and provide better cues for doctors and nurses. Just like a race car driver relies on cues to decide when to
apply the brakes or turn into a corner, we are helping physicians and nurses see when things start to go
wrong. But there's no reason why this new technology needs to stay within a hospital. It can go beyond the
hospital walls. With wireless connectivity, patients, doctors and nurses don’t have to be in the same place
at the same time. We can enable parents to monitor at-risk babies at home. By making better use of this
technology, we’ll keep babies safe even at home, which will make their lives better. I hope you will see your
local hospital making use of this technology soon. Thank you very much for listening.
ITU/SFL PROFICIENCY EXAM June 4, 2015
SESSION II

NOTE-TAKING GUIDE
Take notes using the headings below while listening to the lecture called Improving Race Cars and Saving
Lives. You will hear the lecture ONLY ONCE.

Introduction – A surprising connection

Information about Formula 1 racing cars

The cars’ data collection system

Using the data that is collected

ITU/SFL PROFICIENCY EXAM June 4, 2015
SESSION II

Using the data collection system in hospitals

What the lecturer has done at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital

How Birmingham Children’s Hospital is utilizing the data it collects

The difference this technology is making and can make in people’s lives