The Health Innovation and Transformation (HIT) Center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) https://www,umc.edu is now going to support healthcare-related innovations not only on campus and across the state but also connect UMMC with new technologies and approaches from all over the country.
Terrence Hibbert, Director of Innovation said, “New technologies are coming out quickly and the Medical Center has no way to absorb, evaluate, or figure out if this technology is helpful or simply tech for tech’s sake. The HIT Center will evaluate outside innovations before deciding to implement them at UMMC.”
The idea for the HIT Center came from the convergence of three approaches to improve UMMC. The three approaches entail having the Center for Informatics and Analytics devise healthcare solutions, Division of Information Systems evaluate new technologies, and university research to focus on advancing the institution’s discovery enterprise.
The HIT Center is developing a better way to identify patients needing follow-up for pulmonary nodules detected during various imaging procedures. According to Wendy Howell, Clinical Outcomes Coordinator in the Department of Radiology, “The previous workflow was time consuming and tedious. Before we were using nine different tools to search this data because we didn’t have one tool that could do it all.”
Howell used medical dictation software M* and natural language to create and validate an automated search engine to find radiologists notes for nodule-associated words and numbers.
The older system identified 125 pulmonary nodules in one month. With the new M* model system, the researchers found 380 nodules during the same time period including five not flagged by the older system.
The UMMC’s Tech Transfer Office is going to evaluate innovations and help their creators apply for patents, develop prototypes, and/or connect with computer programmers. The HIT Center will also help determine which outside innovations are worth adopting in clinics, labs, and classrooms.
In another move to support innovation, the HIT Center will hold their first forum on May 15, 2018 to bring Mississippi and global health innovators, researchers, clinicians, and advisors from the start-up investor and incubator Plug and Play Tech Center http://plugandplaytechcenter.com together.
The event will enable attendees to share health related ideas through poster presentations, business plan competitions, networking, and a Shark Tank-like business pitch session. The winning ideas from the competition will receive funding from Plug and Play investors.
The Bower Foundation http://www.bowerfoundation.org a supporter of healthcare solutions in Mississippi has provided a grant to fund the HIT Center’s relationship with Plug and Play. The affiliation is a two way vehicle to enable Medical Center innovators to get advice and investments from a global network and importantly gain access to outside innovations.