On Monday, November 6th, the ninth annual Center for Healthcare Engineering & Patient Safety (CHEPS) Symposium brought together students, alumni, faculty, clinicians, and community members to celebrate another year of multidisciplinary healthcare innovation.
Hosted in U-M’s Lurie Engineering Center, the event highlighted how the fusion of engineering with healthcare can provide robust solutions to difficult problems, addressing the complexities of patient safety, enhancing healthcare operations and delivery, and ultimately improving outcomes for all. Posters from sixteen diverse research projects tackled subjects from prenatal care access to competing scheduling requirements, from inbox-related provider burnout to allocating specialty care for patients with lung and liver cancer.
Just days before, two of these CHEPS posters won awards at U-M’s inaugural Industrial and Operations (IOE) Engineering Undergraduate Research Symposium, organized by U-M IOE Assistant Professor and DEI Committee Member, Albert Berahas. The third place prize went to Amber Campbell and the PATH team (“Tailoring Prenatal Care to Improve Patient and Clinical Outcomes”). First place went to Aparna Reddy and the MERCI team (“Modeling Resource Needs for Screening Interventions in the U.S. Veterans Healthcare System”).
However, the event was more than a simple showcase of projects and posters. It was a testament to the strength of interdisciplinary collaboration and divergent thinking, having brought together changemakers from Michigan Medicine, the Veterans Association Healthcare System of Ann Arbor, the U-M Medical School, Michigan Public Health, Michigan Engineering (IOE, BME, CSE), and more.
In addition to congratulating our students on another year of hard work, CHEPS would like to thank our clinical collaborators, without whom this research would not be possible. Their partnered commitment to health equity and institutional improvement is an inspiration.
— Written by Hannah Buck, CHEPS Staff