With fellowship over, Reese Green heading to Scotland for new data challenge

For Reese Green, it was a puzzle that had to be figured out.

A new graduate of the Master of Science in Healthcare Data Analytics program at the MGH Institute of Health Professions this past May, Green had won a fellowship with a Healthier Democracy, an advocacy nonprofit that sits at the intersection of healthcare and data. Her task was to create a data visualization dashboard that Healthier Democracy could use for research for publishing papers, grant funding, and proof of impact. But there was a problem – the data was scattered.

“Some data was stored in Google sheets, some was stored in their own back-end database – it was spread out in different locations,” recalled Green, who is the daughter of Jordan Green, the Chief Scientific Advisor and Director of the Speech and Feeding Disorders Lab for the MGH Institute. “Data was also stored in different formats, and there were repeated entries that needed to be systematically de-duplicated. It's kind of like you have puzzle pieces you know form a bigger picture, but you’re not sure what the picture is yet and the pieces don't actually fit, so you have to figure out how to carve them to fit each other and ultimately create a picture that makes sense.” 

And so that’s what Green has been doing during her six-month fellowship, with the help of her IHP education. 

“I used a lot of the tools that we learned with, using R programming to clean the data and Tableau to create visualizations,” said Green.  “Those are all tools that we used along with learning how to actually communicate insights about the data. I work with clinicians and administrators and people with different backgrounds, and not everybody is an analyst. I have to explain what I'm doing in a way that makes sense to everybody.  These are all skills that I learned through the program.” 

Alister Martin, Founder and CEO of Healthier Democracy, says Green delivered a tool for the future. 

“Reese has done an outstanding job building a data visualization platform for Link Health from scratch, enabling critical operational and research decision-making,” said Martin. “Her work has supported more than a dozen conference abstract submissions and acceptances, including international presentations, showcasing the impact of the database she created. This tool has been foundational to our research, which is currently in the process of being published. Reese’s contributions are invaluable to our success.”

As Green wraps up her work, she knows Healthier Democracy will be left with data that is ready to use. 

“Now they will have a data set that is organized and clean,” said a proud Green. “This data is updated autonomously as new people enter the system, and the visualizations illustrate a bigger picture using puzzle pieces that now fit together. The team has everything in one spot now. That’s ultimately the backbone of this work.”

Data hygiene is critical because data drives some of Healthier Democracy’s most critical programs, such as Link Health, the initiative Green worked on that targets communities where there are health inequities. Link Health can help ease the process of applying for financial support for internet access, rent, or groceries. The process of applying for such staples can be difficult for a person who doesn’t have a laptop, or stable Internet access, or if English isn't a first language. Link Health is linking patients with these programs with the idea that these are social factors that impact health outcomes; if someone has internet access, or rent or groceries, then that will have a positive health impact. 

“This data creates an evidence base for what we're doing and for the communities that we are supporting,” said Green. “In terms of laws and policies, we can now say, ‘Oh, we've helped distribute funds in this particular way to provide Internet access in these zip codes in Boston. In the future, we might then track, do health outcomes change in these areas? Do we see any differences? Do we see a reduction in hospitalizations in these areas? That's an early marker of improved health outcomes.”

This fall there was a push to renew the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which had just ended because Congress didn’t fund it again. 

A Healthier Democracy used the dashboard Green created to cross reference Congressional seats up for re-election with the ACP’s enrollment trends for those specific areas. Among the question: What is the Internet access in these areas? And is it above or below national averages? 

“With that info, Healthier Democracy can then approach those politicians and say, ‘You know, the Internet access rates in your county are really below average and you underenrolled people in this benefit program, so we need to renew this bill so that people within your county will have access to Internet because you're falling behind,’” said Green. “If we can really pinpoint regions and say, ‘This district is not on par with national averages’ or ‘We're enrolling a lot of people in this district - can you please support the renewal of this benefit because without it, 300 people in this district are going to be without internet.’  Access to this kind of data makes it more personalized for these politicians.”

A Healthier Democracy’s founder and CEO concurs. 

“That kind of targeted, data-informed operations isn’t something we've ever done,” said Martin. “But it’s something we will always do now because it's so obvious - to be able to think about where our services are most needed.”

With Green’s fellowship ending this week, she has eyes set on a new challenge – across the pond. Starting next week, she’ll be working as a research assistant at the University of Glasgow in Scotland where she will be exploring how social factors impact health outcomes and new modelling techniques that can elucidate the causal mechanisms that underlie some of these relationships and optimize health policies. 

“I’m just really grateful - this has been an amazing opportunity,” gushed Green.  “I didn't know this fellowship was going to come to me. And so, I feel really grateful for the IHP and for everybody that was involved in making this happen. And I've learned so much.  I now feel ready to step into this new role, which is amazing.”

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