The Penn State Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT) is please to announce the industry-guided projects for the 2018/2019 academic year. Penn State CHOT will work closely with other CHOT university sites and industry members to advance the aims and objectives of the 2018/2019 CHOT projects, with Penn State taking the lead role in a subset of them, as indicated below. Penn State CHOT is a multidisciplinary center that includes active participation from Penn State's College of Engineering, Medicine, Information Science and Technology, Health and Human Development, Nursing, and Business.

1. Comprehensive Analysis on Impact of Social Determinants to Improve Care Across Populations

2. Participating in a Community Health Improvement Network

3. The Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment Services in Combating Opioid Crisis (led by Penn State)

4. Measuring Patient Experience and the Effects of Community Factors on Value-based Reimbursement across the Continuum of Care

5. Developing a Risk Prediction Model for Hospital Acquired Clostridium Difficile Infection

6. HIE Project for Chronic Disease and Workflow Management

7. Leveraging Technology to Enhance Communication in Health Care

8. Data-driven Analytics and Machine Learning for Improving Health Care Outcomes 

(led by Penn State)

9. Care Coordination Activities for Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury

10. Embedding Routine, Informal Family Caregiver Assessment of Delirium Superimposed on Dementia into Acute Care (led by Penn State)

11. Telemedicine in Primary Care and in the Management of Chronic Conditions: Exploring Patient & Provider Perspectives (led by Penn State)

12. A Home Health Intervention to Address Health Literacy Barriers, Increase Patient Engagement, and Improve Patient Experience and Outcomes

Mallory Peterson first attended Penn State for her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. She was privileged to be a member of the Women's Soccer Team, Schreyer Honors College, and Presidential Leadership Academy during this time as well. It was during her undergraduate experience that she met and conducted research under Dr. Steven Schiff of the Center for Neural Engineering. She had the opportunity to work on a project that compared the effectiveness of two different surgeries designed to treat post infectious hydrocephalus in Ugandan infants. This project resulted in a high impact publication in The New England Journal of Medicine, and inspired Mallory to pursue a career combining clinical work and research.

Mallory is currently an M.D./Ph.D. student at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She just finished her first two years of medical school and is beginning her graduate studies within the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics with a focus on neural engineering. She is honored to be a part of the CHOT program and is excited to begin working on technology that will take advantage of techniques such as machine learning to help directly improve the patient experience.

 

Research Adviser: Dr. Steven Schiff

Liang (Leon) Xu is a fifth-year Ph.D. student at Smeal College of Business at Penn State. His research interests are mainly around the health care operations and pharmaceutical supply chain management. His current research spans across the whole pharmaceutical supply chain, such as the process of R&D, distribution, and reimbursement. Specifically, his dissertation investigates the recent innovations in the U.S. health care system, including the accelerated drug approval process, specialty drugs, and outcome-based reimbursement. He uses various methods such as analytical modeling, empirical methods, data analytics and experiment designs in addressing these issues.

Liang is also interested in behavioral operations. He uses lab experiments to pin down the behavioral bias in human decisions and derives the corresponding managerial implications. He teaches the undergraduate core course Supply Chain Analytics at Smeal College of Business. He received the Ph.D. teaching award from Smeal because of his outstanding teaching evaluation.

Research Adviser:  Dr. Hui Zhao

Brandon Hendriksen is currently a general surgery resident at  Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. He earned his doctorate of medicine and his master's degree in public health at the University of Miami where he developed a passion for health care system development and quality improvement by participating in developmental projects in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti. This past year he has helped to develop the Penn State Global Surgery Program and is actively working on projects in Ghana. His experiences abroad have helped to develop fresh and innovative perspectives on how to transform health care and quality at Penn State Health. Over the last year, Brandon had an opportunity to lead a unique resident run quality review and improvement project that helped to identify areas for system improvement at his home institution.

With the assistance of CHOT, Brandon is excited to begin working on his current project to improve resident efficiency and workflow which will ultimately improve patient outcomes, resident education, and Penn State health care delivery.

Research Adviser:  Dr. Melissa M. Boltz

David Morrell is a general surgery resident at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in his first academic development year. He received his doctor of medicine degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and his bachelor of science in physiology and developmental biology from Brigham Young University.

At the conclusion of his general surgery training, he plans to pursue further specialized training in minimally invasive surgery. His research interests include outcomes research and quality improvement. He is currently enrolled in the Penn State College of Medicine Master of Public Health Sciences program.

Research Adviser: Dr. Melissa M. Boltz

Lindsay is a junior majoring in biomedical engineering with a biomechanics specialty. She is a volunteer at Mount Nittany Medical Center's Biomedical Engineering Department, where she constructs and maintains medical equipment. She is also active in Penn State's Women in Engineering Program as a study group facilitator and envoy for their orientation program. Lindsay is also involved in the Ski Club, where she is a  THON  Leadership Team member, raising money to battle childhood cancer.

 

Research Adviser: Dr. Mary Frecker

Fariha is a junior studying mechanical engineering at Penn State. She is currently working as an undergraduate research assistant at the Engineering Design and Optimization Group Lab led by Drs. Mary Frecker and Tim Simpson. Fariha also works as a cashier at the Bryce Jordan Center and is part of the LionTech Rocket Club, Beaver Hall Council, and the Archery Club.

Research Adviser: Dr. Mary Frecker