HCESC announces fall 2016 award winners

10/17/2016 Kim Gudeman, CSL

All six projects, which will receive a total of $546,944, will fund research that aims to develop technology and techniques that advance clinical simulation and patient care.

Written by Kim Gudeman, CSL

The Health Care Engineering Systems Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jump Simulation at OSF HealthCare have selected six new projects for funding through the Jump ARCHES program, which was formed in 2014 through a $50 million endowment.

T. "Kesh" Kesavadas
All six projects, which will receive a total of $546,944, will fund research conducted by Illinois faculty. The program aims to develop technology and techniques that advance clinical simulation and patient care.

“We received outstanding proposals for this round of Jump ARCHES's call for proposals,” said T. "Kesh” Kesavadas, HCESC director and a professor of industrial and enterprise systems engineering. “The proposals that were selected for funding have the potential of transforming many areas of healthcare ranging from surgical planning using the next generation of 3D printing techniques to new Natural Language-based avatars capable of interacting with patients.”

The selected projects include:

Multi-Modal Medical Image Segmentation, Registration & Abnormality Detection for Clinical Applications

PI: Thomas Huang, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Huang will lead a team that develops an automatic 3D segmentation method, making it easier to separate out images of particular organs from an entire 3D rendering. As a result, physicians will be able to better detect abnormalities in medical images.

Developing MRI Acquisitions and Protocols to Enable Automated Segmentation of Cardiac & Brain Images

PI: Brad Sutton, Bioengineering

In this project, researchers will develop an imaging protocol that will help physicians get a better picture of the heart and brain. Work will focus on providing maximal differentiation of different tissue types in the brain and heart of patients undergoing MRI diagnostics. This will result in several acquisitions that, when combined, provide maximal tissue separation in a multidimensional histogram. Using open-source algorithms, they will develop processing scripts that automatically create segmented and labeled models of the tissue types and states in a 3D structure of the heart.

Development of a Robotic Forearm to Simulate Abnormal Muscle Tone Due to Brain Lesions

PI: Dr. Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler, Mechanical Science and Engineering

To aid patients with brain lesions, who often suffer from abnormal muscle tone, Hsiao-Weckler’s team is refining a forearm simulator that can more accurately present different selectable characteristic patterns of spasticity and rigidity in the elbow during flexion, ensuring that the simulated responses are comparable to real patients. The researchers will use biomechanical data from clinician-applied force functions data to update the design parameters of the forearm simulator. The outcomes will be used to inform the development of enhanced simulators for mimicking additional behaviors, device design using fluids and flow channel configurations, and future training mannequins with moveable limbs. This project is a continuation of the proposal funded previously by ARCHES.

Interactive Technology Support for Patient Medication Self-Management

PI: Dan Morrow, Educational Psychology

Researchers are developing a natural language processing tool that translates technical medication information into patient-centered language in electronic medical records (EMR). Morrow’s group is integrating patient-centered language into a conversational agent (CA)-based “medication adviser” system that supports collaboration and emulates best practices gleaned from face-to-face communication techniques. The researchers also will engage patients by developing interactive capabilities, such as using “teachback” when communicating with patients.

Surgical Planning via Preoperative Surgical Repair of Next Generation 3D, Patient Specific, Cardiac Mimic

PI: Rashid Bashir, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Bioengineering

Led by Bashir, this Illinois team is working to improve care for pediatric cardiac patients. Researchers will leverage CT imaging and segmentation approaches to create new models for printing 3D infant hearts that mimic the structure, material properties, and physical defects of tiny patients. Physician will use the 3D models to practice surgical techniques and then use imaging methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the procedure.

Multi-Robot Minimally Invasive Single Port Laparoscopic Surgery

PI: Placid Ferreira, Mechanical Science and Engineering

Ferreira is working to develop a new robotic platform that that enables high-fidelity digital simulation, which will facilitate easy surgical training for clinicians. The robot will allow surgeons to translate the dexterity, torque, and triangulation capabilities of the human in-vivo and will offer a high level of configurable and customizable methods for different surgical procedures. In addition, the robot will be portable and easy to use in field and emergency operations, as well as potentially low cost.

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About the Health Care Engineering Systems Center (HCESC)

HCESC provides clinical immersion to engineers and fosters collaborations between engineers and physicians. The goal is to use our deep expertise in the broad areas of Health Information Technologies, Sensing and Devices, Materials and Mechanics, and Human Factors/Industrial Ergonomics and Design (and other areas to be identified in the future) to develop collaborative projects which could be used for simulation in training of medical practitioners of tomorrow. The Center is partnering with OSF HealthCare through Jump Simulation in Peoria, Illinois, on the initiative, known as Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation (ARCHES).


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This story was published October 17, 2016.