Project Sparrow

Project Sparrow is one of ROEB's Transformation initiative which started in April 2021. The project aims to create a digital library of online data enabled by web scraping technologies of emerging health products, techniques, technology, processes, trends etc, for the purpose of informing Compliance &Enforcement decisions​. We are currently in a research phase - defining the problem statement and scope, as well as discover what other partners have done in this space. The project anticipates taking my pivots as new information is discovered.

Project Context

In fulfilling its mandate, ROEB applies a sound and robust risk management approach to decision-making that prioritizes the overall health and safety of Canadians. Risk management tools and Frameworks are further complemented by the data which is available, useful and of good quality. ROEB primarily uses internal collected data to inform its C&E decisions, which is primarily used to:

• Respond to media requests​
• Equip Canadians to make informed decisions about their health​
• Communicate clear expectations for regulated parties
• Identify areas for improvement ​
• Inform operational C&E decision-making through identification of trends, emerging issues, and areas of focus​
• Measure performance

One of the many challenges ROEB faces when applying risk management framework is the availability of data. For instance for inspections and compliance verification, we rely on inspectors comments and industry completed forms to collect data to inform our decisions. This data is often difficult to work with as it may not meet one or more of the core data properties:

• Relevance and usefulness
• Accuracy
• Timeliness
• Accessibility and clarity
• Comparability
• Consistency
• Completeness

The question becomes: is there a way to further complement the data that ROEB collects to further inform decision making? There are numerous success stories in industry that capitalize on publicly available data to inform business decisions. ROEB would like to explore the use of public source of data to further refine, inform, or validate current C&E decisions.

The Waterloo Experience (WE) Story

An opportunity was presented to Health Canada to be part of the Waterloo Experience - a program co-created with AltaML, Microsoft and Industry/Public partners which provides students in-demand Artificial Intelligence (AI) and business skill development, team-based project experience, and real-world industry exposure. Health Canada is one of the partners that has brought a use case business problem to these students so they can apply AI and ML to solve.

Decisions informed with data that is driven by risk is a prime focus for all programs in ROEB. Health Canada is proposing to explore digital public forums (e.g. Twitter) to measure sentiment using Natural Processing Language (NLP) targeted to health products. If successful, we can apply this model to complement resource allocation to inspections, ROEB HR strategy, site selection and prioritization, and more.

Repository

Click here to access the Sparrow files.