Below is my monthly message for the September 2020 edition of the MHRI newsletter, Focus.
You can view Focus
online at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Remember when ‘September anxiety’ was getting the back-to-school shopping done on time or fretting about which class the kids were assigned to?
How trivial that all seems now. While there was always some nervousness with ‘back to school’, it was something we learned to navigate with confidence. Heck, each of us went through this transition numerous times as a student, and often as a parent/guardian/older sibling. But something we had mastered has suddenly become an unknown. We don’t have experience with predicting if school can be done safely in-person or needs to be virtual or hybrid. We don’t have experience with rapidly changing from one educational approach to another without warning. For me, I am grateful that my son has gotten to experience 3 weeks as a freshman on campus at William & Mary. However, we all now sit on edge as the upperclassmen arrive this weekend. In today’s world, we all live without knowing what next week will bring to our households and that is unsettling.
And despite the incredible uncertainty of so many things around us and within our homes, I am filled with pride for the steadfast care we provide at MedStar Health. Care for our patients, care for our associates, and care for our community. We are caring for people today while simultaneously advancing health to care for them tomorrow.
In fact, I believe we have actually accelerated our work to advance health throughout the pandemic. Just this week, I shared a video message with MHRI associates about the continued growth of advancing health through research. In my message last month with Dan Marchalik, we talked about the wonderful work happening across MedStar to advance the health of our associates. Advancing health through education has seen remarkable growth through the system-wide consortium, just validated this month with a new 10-year accreditation! And of course, MI2 has led a remarkable effort to advance health through innovation by propelling MedStar’s telehealth initiatives throughout the COVID19 pandemic. In addition to standing up a system that has enabled the delivery of more than 400,000 telehealth sessions, MI2 secured a $976,000 award from the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) COVID-19 Telehealth Award Program.
As any proud parent shares the accomplishments of their children, I would ask for your indulgence as I share just a few of the remarkable accomplishments this month at MHRI:
- Dr. Ron Waksman received a 4 year, $20.5M research grant from Phillips for the IMPROVE study (IMPact on Revascularization Outcomes of intraVascular ultrasound-guided treatment of complex coronary lesions and Economic impact). This is the largest single commercially sponsored contract in the history of MHRI.
- Raj Ratwani, PhD received a $1.6M ROI (yes, another RO1!) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This grant is in the important area of artificial intelligence and patient safety, specifically the development of machine learning algorithms to semi-automatically analyze medication-related reports and develop prototype software for patient safety officers.
- Another important machine learning grant comes from Dr. Nawar Shara who was awarded an NIH grant, in collaboration with our academic partner Georgetown University and GHUCCTS (Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science), to study maternal mortality using machine learning.
- Dr. Federico Asch launched the WASE-COVID study (World study of the American Society of Echocardiography, in collaboration with the University of Chicago) which has already enrolled over 700 COVID patients world-wide in order to evaluate acute and subacute cardiac damage with echocardiography through the use of artificial intelligence.
- Drs. Kristen Miller and William Weintraub received a $1.7m two-year contract from the CDC. MHRI will join a few select institutions in an expansive effort to conduct COVID-19 surveillance through symptom tracking using an app on your smart device (and through more limited serological testing in a subset). The syndromic surveillance component will be one of the largest recruitment efforts to take place at MedStar with a target of over 50,000 patients.
Stay safe and I hope you had a chance to enjoy some part of the Labor Day weekend with loved ones.
Neil
