Healthcare Technology

Building a new tool to tackle health disparities

4429684e-ae8d-405e-870a-3b7aefe68162 (Martha Bushong) — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 12:00:33 +0000

Building a new tool to tackle health disparities 4429684e-ae8d-… Tue, 04/02/2024 - 08:00

In This Story

When people ask George Mason University Associate Professor David Lattanzi why a civil engineer is working in forensic nursing science, he can only say, ‘Why not?’ Lattanzi is a co-principal investigator on research to develop a tool that will help clinicians and others assess bruises on victims of violence, particularly those with darker skin tones.

This work, led by principal investigator Katherine Scafide, associate professor in the College of Public Health, recently received a $4.86 million gift from an anonymous donor which extends the findings of an earlier Department of Justice grant that began more than three years ago.

The team’s multidisciplinary research combines Scafide’s work with alternate light source technology, co-PI Janusz Wojtusiak’s expertise in informatics, and Lattanzi’s knowledge of computer vision and deep learning to address challenges of identifying bruises and other injuries in victims of domestic violence.

“When I started at Mason 10 years ago, I never imagined that my work could have a societal impact like this,” said Lattanzi. But Lattanzi has always been interested in finding innovative solutions to real-world problems. A structural engineer by training, he spent his early years as a bridge and tunnel inspector. After seeing too many close calls while working on inspection sites, he thought there must be a better way. So he began using drones and imaging to address the next generation of infrastructure-inspection technologies—and make bridge inspection less dangerous.

Though drones aren’t part of this research, he and the team are using the image-based diagnostic techniques that began a decade ago. Now Lattanzi is enhancing these tools with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to examine human skin structures damaged by incidents of domestic violence.

According to a statement from the university, one in three women worldwide experience some form of violence. In the United States, more than 10 million women and men deal with interpersonal violence each year. These numbers tell only part of the story, because bruises are difficult to detect on darker skin tones, many victims miss out on getting the help they need.

The tool these researchers will build needs a large enough database to identify skin tones “accurately and equitably,” said Lattanzi. One of the important goals of the project, therefore, is to build a unique data repository that combines images of bruises and other injuries, with measurements, clinical and demographic information about the victim, and information inferred by artificial intelligence. Currently, the platform includes about 30,000 images of bruises collected using visible and alternative light sources.

“Having a massive database leads to better outcomes and measurably better outcomes for those victims downstream in terms of their care and in terms of their outcomes in the criminal justice system,” Lattanzi said.

The tool the Mason researchers are building could be an app on a smartphone that clinicians can use to assess the age of bruises. Lattanzi said they hope to have a prototype in a year, and possibly have the technology available for use in a couple of years.

Topics

Healthcare Technology

Artificial Intellgence

College of Engineering and Computing

College of Public Health

Research

Mason team collaborates with the World Bank to launch MASH-Pandemics: A Portal to support Models for Assessing Strategies for Hospitals (MASH) through COVID-19 and other pandemics

4429684e-ae8d-405e-870a-3b7aefe68162 (Martha Bushong) — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:16:39 +0000

Mason team collaborates with the World Bank to launch MASH-Pandemics: A Portal to support Models for Assessing Strategies for Hospitals (MASH) through COVID-19 and other pandemics 4429684e-ae8d-… Mon, 04/20/2020 - 13:16

Professor Elise Miller-Hooks

George Mason University professor Elise Miller-Hooks and her team have been studying and modeling the flow of patients through American hospitals in times of crisis since 2014. Now, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are collaborating with Mason alumna Mersedeh Tariverdi (PhD ’17) who is a Senior Data Scientist in the Health, Nutrition, and Population Group at the World Bank to launch a web portal that will support models that aids hospital responses to the pandemic.

The team’s work supports evidence-based decision making, informed by the models, to rethink and facilitate hospital operations in utilizing limited critical resources as demand surges. While working as a PhD student under Miller-Hooks’ supervision, Tariverdi developed key models that now serve as the backbone for the MASH-Pandemics portal.

Mersedah Tariverdim, PhD, '17

Only hours after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, graduate students working with Miller-Hooks began incorporating personal protective equipment, ventilators, and COVID-19 patients with their care paths into the models. Disposable equipment such as face masks and permanent equipment like ventilators are treated differently. The models allow the team to assess alternative capacity enhancement and demand management strategies, crisis standards of care options, and hospital collaboration measures in a dynamically changing environment.

“We’re working as fast as we can because the need is so urgent and the crisis is enormous. This effort is about health care worker safety and helping the hospitals cope with the pandemic,” says Miller-Hooks. “It’s about saving lives, as well as the efficient and equitable allocation of resources.”

The work can help hospitals to best cope with surge demand in spite of limited resources. It can aid decision-makers in regional response and hospital collaboration planning with health care facilities offering various levels of care. It can inform decisions on the mobilization of critical supplies, supplemental space, including tents and ships, and teams of frontline health care workers and other first responders to where they are needed the most.

"We’re working as fast as we can because the need is so urgent and the crisis is enormous. This effort is about health care worker safety and helping the hospitals cope with the pandemic. It’s about saving lives, as well as the efficient and equitable allocation of resources."

Elise Miller-Hooks

The models highlight general recommendations made based on findings that assume a generic urban hospital design and crisis standards of care approaches to treating patients in this pandemic. Hospital administrators and others working in an official capacity can request runs of the MASH-Pandemics models through the portal to help them with decision-making tailored for their hospitals or group of hospitals working in collaboration.

This effort builds on previously developed sophisticated discrete-event simulation models to replicate operations in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. MASH-Pandemics was developed on a patient-based, resource-constrained, multi-unit hospital model originally designed for assessing hospital preparedness to serve emergency patients in a surge, pandemic, mass casualty incident, and disaster events.

“Our models are unique for several reasons,” says Miller-Hooks. “If you look at most other hospital models, and there are many out there, they generally focus on single key units and are designed for routine operations,” she says. “Sometimes they’ll include two units. Our model tracks patients along their entire care paths, along with physical resources and staff through ten essential units. The models are very detailed as is needed to capture the complexities of their operations. We do not know of other models that have considered mass casualty incidents at this level.

“Our recommendations rely on feedback from collaborating disaster and emergency medicine experts from Johns Hopkins University including Lauren Sauer and Scott Levin, as well as Thomas Kirsch,” says Miller-Hooks. “World Bank Group’s engagement brings a global perspective to the collaboration, and this perspective is critical in aiding hospitals at the frontlines of this world-wide emergency in resource-scarce settings.”

For more information about the project go to mash-pandemics.vse.gmu.edu

People Mentioned in This Story

Elise Miller-Hooks

Visit the MASH Pandemics Site

Topics

Big Data

Healthcare Technology

CEC faculty research

Elise Miller-Hooks

admin_alpha — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 09:40:01 +0000

Elise Miller-Hooks admin_alpha Sun, 08/28/2016 - 05:40

Professor and Interim Department Chair; affiliate faculty Systems Engineering and Operations Research

Bill and Eleanor Hazel Endowed Chair

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-1685
Campus: Fairfax
Building: Nguyen Engineering Building
Room 4614

Email: miller@gmu.edu

Related Programs

Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, MS

In the News

Mason researchers study the complicated and cascading effects of Arctic ice melt

Mason team collaborates with the World Bank to launch MASH-Pandemics

Personal Websites

Miller-Hooks' Complete Profile

Biography

For over two decades, Elise Miller-Hooks has been applying and advancing operations research concepts to civil and infrastructure systems applications.

Miller-Hooks is driven by a strong desire to make a positive impact on society, and her research program reflects this motivation. Together with her students and post-docs, she focuses on creating mathematically-based decision-support tools and algorithms that can be used to design, manage, operate, maintain, and protect the built environment. Her research has been supported by various sources, including private organizations, non-profits, and local, national, and international government agencies.

Miller-Hooks holds a PhD in Civil Engineering and an MS in Engineering from the University of Texas - Austin, as well as a BS in Civil Engineering from Lafayette College. Prior to joining Mason, she served as a program director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and on the faculties of the University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University, and Duke University. Now, Miller-Hooks holds the Bill and Eleanor Hazel Endowed Chair in Infrastructure Engineering in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at George Mason University.

Research Spotlight:

Elise Miller-Hooks is one of the faculty members diving into how melting ice in the Arctic will affect the people, habitats, and social fabric of the remote region. She says the team’s work has opened her eyes to the interconnectedness of our world. Although she has traveled around the globe, she never thought she would visit the Arctic—it seemed so distant and remote. “I realize now that we are all in this together. What happens in Nuuk, Greenland or Barrow, Alaska affects us all.”
Read more about this research or watch the video below.

Teaching Interests:

Civil Infrastructure Systems Modeling
Transportation Systems Engineering
Network Algorithms
Multi-Objective Decision-Making

Research Interests:

Multi-Hazard Civil Infrastructure Resilience Quantification
Disaster Planning, Evacuation, and Response
Stochastic and Dynamic Network Algorithms
Mathematical Modeling and Optimization
Transportation Systems Engineering
Intermodal Passenger and Freight Transport
Alternative Modes (Paratransit, Ridesharing, Bikeways)
Real-Time Routing and Fleet Management
Incident Management
Transportation Infrastructure Investment for Climate Uncertainty
Collaborative and Multi-Objective Decision-Making

Healthcare Technology

Building a new tool to tackle health disparities

In This Story

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Learn more about the research

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Mason team collaborates with the World Bank to launch MASH-Pandemics: A Portal to support Models for Assessing Strategies for Hospitals (MASH) through COVID-19 and other pandemics

People Mentioned in This Story

Visit the MASH Pandemics Site

Topics

Elise Miller-Hooks

Contact Information

Related Programs

In the News

Personal Websites

Biography

Research Spotlight:

Teaching Interests:

Research Interests: