Innovative Student Solutions to Challenging Health Issues
Have a great idea for an innovative way to promote healthy living?
Got a plan for a new process or design that would revolutionize health care delivery?
We want to hear it!
The CHS Dean’s Office will be funding innovative student projects focused on addressing challenging health issues.
Other questions? please contact jmreed@udel.edu
Press
First Step: Ideas for a healthier world
Projects
Please find below the ten projects currently being funded, including a brief description of the project as well as the problems and goals associated with them. You may also download a PDF of these projects.
STUDENT: Ryan Locke
PROBLEM: Physical therapy doesn't use enough innovative, computerized/
technologically advanced equipment which leaves too much room for human error.
GOAL: Develop standardized machines to cut back on time consumption and have 0% error.
SOLUTION: Create specialized devices/robotics for each joint in the body. Visit athletic trainer, interview injured students, visit professors.
STUDENT: Celeste Richards
PROBLEM:"Food deserts" exist in America, namely in urban areas. Many racial groups are disproportionately affected by obesity. Access to affordable and nutritious food is difficult
GOAL: Make a dent in the problem by researching it and bringing attention to it, in a paper called "Bringing Life Back into the Food Desert"
SOLUTION: Research, raise awareness, team up with major companies, contact state reps, map and ID food deserts, interview grocery store owners and see how they could be convinced to build stores in urban areas, get donations, create a Facebook account with each "like" equalling a dollar
STUDENT: Stephen Donald
PROBLEM: Childhood obesity an overwhelming problem, but working with adults/parents has yet to solve it.
GOAL: Increase youth awareness of fitness importance, increase daily physical activity,
increase frequency of healthy food choices, reduce prevalence of child obesity and
associated diseases.
SOLUTION: Create the "FitTen" program - a fitness intervention made up of 10 principals based on belief that finding what motivates the child will best combat obesity - not programs designed by scientists and researches. Two phases - needs assessment survey, and intervention phase.
STUDENT: Kevin Chang, Mitali Desai, Annie Sanger
PROBLEM: College students' unhealthy consumption patterns
GOAL: Make college students aware of current food choices. With knowledge at fingertips specialized for this campus, students will see health values in food choices.
SOLUTION: Create an app for Android that will track the food available on campus, providing insight that could provoke change
STUDENT: Angelica Montes, Michelle Francis
PROBLEM: Lab results don't always make it to the physician in a timely manner. It goes through a number of hands, and sometimes this jeopardizes the patient's health.
GOAL: Develop a standard operating procedure to facilitate timely delivery of critical laboratory test results to improve patient care/outcomes
SOLUTION: Use BCBS physician list and mail a survey and request for each office's procedure on lab test results to physicians (include self addressed, stamped envelope). Get the results of the survey and incorporate it into building an SOP for all physicians
STUDENT: Marta Shakhazizian
PROBLEM: Obesity in kids and adolescents, with soda and junk food acting as the new beer and cigarettes.
GOAL: Show people the harmful effects instead of telling them. Imagery and propaganda used to combat current commercial ads glorifying junk foods.
SOLUTION:Create and post posters displaying the message that "Junk Kills". Use imagery to change thinking patterns and habits. Negative association with junk food should help many overcome junk food addiction.
To learn more, like our page on Facebook! 
STUDENT: Allison Morris, Jaewoong Yoo, Daniel Reyes, Jacob Joseph
PROBLEM: Food insecurity in Haiti, namely the problem of maternal and child health malnutrition in Fond des Blanc, Haiti. Food surplus from the US created a dependence, but left the real problem unaddressed
GOAL: Develop a plan in conjunction with Udel faculty members, Haiti community leaders to combat food insecurity.
SOLUTION: The Students for Haiti would like to develop a model and provide Haitians with the education, skills, and tools necessary to allow self-sufficiency over the long term. Use malnutrition screenings to monitor impact of model.
STUDENT: Kelsey Bristow
PROBLEM: Teenaged pregnancy on the rise, and not enough good, comprehensive material online in user-friendly formats. (Too much misinformation)
GOAL: Bring the information to the pregnant teens/students that need it, make information straight forward and easy to understand, make it mobile friendly - and make it a "page 1" on search engines
SOLUTION: Website that aggregates information on programs and services offered to pregnant and parenting h.s./college students in DE - mobile friendly. Make information easily visible (first clicks)
STUDENT: Chelsea Hollowell
PROBLEM: The Cheyenne River Sioux suffer extreme povrety and struggle with alcoholism, suicide and diabetes. This (in part) stems from lack of nearby resources or knowledge to spend wisely.
GOAL: For residents of the Cheyenne reservation to be able to lose weight and control diabetes by following healthier diet regimens and using herbs as seasoning instead of salt.
SOLUTION: Classes useless without fresh food, so teach healthy techniques, produce preservation, and help cultivate herb gardens. Demonstrate 3 recipes, step by step methods of canning, ultimately phase out store bought canned goods (salt content contributes to ill health). Evaluate progress yearly.
STUDENT: Ariana Haidari, Dana Sivak
PROBLEM: Childhood obesity and associated diseases run rampant. Educating adults is not enough to combat the problem.
GOAL: Educate elementary school students about the importance of proper nutrition. Shift focus from "weight" to planning healthy, balanced meals. Empower the youth, and they will change.
SOLUTION: Focus on portion size and control, balanced meals, snack options, importance of different nutrients. Different levels of education (through puzzles and coloring books to computer games) available to each tier (comprised of a few gradel
levels each). Visit schools, talk to administrators, help implement program.
First Step in the Press
Background
The College of Health Sciences invites CHS undergraduate students, or teams of students led by a CHS undergraduate, to (a) identify important challenges in healthcare and healthy living and (b) develop novel solutions to those challenges.
Students will prepare a proposal application that seeks to focus on an important aspect of health care, develop a potential solution to that problem, and present their solution for review. CHS will provide $500 funding to each of the top 20 applications to identify a health care problem and articulate a potential solution to that problem.
The students will have 6 months to develop their solution, which could be a policy, application, device or best practice, but not limited to those categories. Written reports and oral presentations of the student’s or team’s results and solution will be evaluated by a faculty committee.
All students will be invited to present their solutions at a public symposium in the form of a poster, where the top 3 students will give a short oral presentation and cash prizes of $1500, $1000 and $500 awarded to the top three students or teams. Students and Teams will be connected with experts in order to develop a dialogue about the merits of their ideas and how they may move forward to pursue and further develop their ideas. Should students develop applications or devices that they feel warrant consideration as intellectual property or patent protection, they should communicate this fact to their faculty advisor two months in advance of the symposium presentation (February 5, 2013) such that appropriate paperwork can be filled out in order to protect their ideas or invention.
Examples of projects include but are not limited to: biomedical research, medical practice, health advocacy, health policy, health management, health informatics, community-based research or related health areas. The solutions may be a device or product, a business model, an organization, a policy or a process or procedure that offers an improvement to health care or healthy living, but are not limited to those categories. There are a variety of approaches that could be developed, including developing new health care policies, inventing a device, outlining a change in best practices, developing new and better ways to evaluate outcomes. In addition, there are ideas that might be developed as intellectual property or small start-up businesses. Some specific examples might be illustrated by a new breed of biotech companies that focus on best practices in health care.
For example, here are some ideas that some new companies are pursuing (see above website):
- Bon'App: website and mobile app that allows users to learn about the nutritional value of the food they're eating "through simplistic language and graphical displays," according to the company, ideally leading to healthier choices.
- GeckoCap: a cap that fits over existing asthma inhalers to monitor usage and send data to the web, helping parents and healthcare professionals better manage a child's asthma. GeckoCap took the top prize in an MIT Media Lab hackathon earlier this year that focused on healthcare. - Uprise Medical: software that runs on a tablet computer and uses text, video, and animation to help physicians better explain a specific medical condition to patients. Information can also be e-mailed directly to patients for later reference.
- Aavya Health: software that presents lab results to patients "in an intuitive and engaging format," according to the company. Patients can see how changes in their lifestyle and behaviors would alter their risk for future problems, like a heart attack. Aavya was a runner-up earlier this year in the Health 2.0 "Boston Big Data Code-A-Thon."
- iQuartic: collects and organizes real-time data from medical records across different systems. Allows hospitals and health systems to better analyze doctor performance and patient trends. - Abiogenix: developing the uBox, a smart pill container that will prompt patients to take their meds. The box can alert pharmacies when the user needs a refill.
- Health Delivery: tackling unhealthy eating by delivering meal ingredients, recipes, and short instructional videos to consumers.
- Yosko: developing an iPad app to give doctors on-the-go access to patient info. - Smart Scheduling: creating software to predict whether a patient will show up for his next appointment, with a goal of reducing no-show rates for primary care physicians (and decreasing wait times for patients).
- Gweepi Medical: a disposable patch that helps nursing homes monitor patients with incontinence problems.
Students or student teams will compose an application that identifies a health care challenge and articulates a plan to develop a solution to that problem. The application will be 3-5 pages in length. The application should be organized as follows:
- Summarize the challenge to be addressed and the type of solution to be developed
- Give some background on this challenge and why it is important
- Indicate what current approaches are being used and state why these approaches are not satisfactory
- Develop a proposed plan to address these challenges.
- State the qualifications and background of the student or the team.
- Estimate the funds needed to develop this plan (up to $500) and justify why these funds are needed
All College of Health Science registered undergraduate students are eligible. If the application will be developed by a team, then the leader of the team must be a CHS undergraduate student, but undergraduate members of the team may come from either the CHS or other colleges within the University of Delaware Newark campus.
These 3-5 page applications should be submitted to the College of Health Sciences Dean’s Office via email (chs-info@udel.edu) by 5:00 pm, September 24, 2012. They will be reviewed by a committee of 5 faculty members for merit, and the top 20 students or student teams will be awarded up to $500 to pursue their research project idea. Students will be assigned a faculty project advisor and will meet with the advisor once per month to provide updates on progress.
Funds may be used to purchase resource information, travel, expenses related to interviews of patients, and expenses associated with team meetings or other uses related to the development of the project solution. Funds may not be used for enrollment fees, salaries or personal living expenses.
At the end of the 6 months, a second, 3-5 page report will be provided to the Associate Dean for Research by 5:00 pm, March 1, 2013 and students will be responsible for (a) preparing their report in the form of a poster (CHS will assist) and creating a 10 minute PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the research health challenge they addressed, the reason the problem is significant, current approaches and then the student or teams suggested approach, which should also be provided. These reports will be evaluated by the awards committee in order to prepare the committee for oral presentations.
The students will also present their results in the form of a PowerPoint presentation to the review committee for evaluation (March 15, 2013). Projects will be reviewed based on (a) the significance of the problem to be addressed, (b) innovation, (c) practical ability to develop the idea and apply the solution to real world problems. The committee will rank the top 3 projects based on the review criteria and the quality of their written and oral presentations.
All presentations will be prepared as a poster and displayed at a public symposium on Friday, April 5th, 2013. The top 3 projects will be invited to summarize their results at the symposium and prizes awarded for 1st place ($1500), 2nd place ($1000) and 3rd place ($500) to the winning student or team.
The symposium will take place at a venue that will provide dinner for students and teams, faculty participants and invited guests.
After the awards are made, the winning student or teams will be directed to interact with experts in the area of their study in order to help the student or team to understand how their idea might be implemented or developed and applied for real world applications. Students may elect to develop their ideas in undergraduate or graduate research training programs, or in the private sector.
