A ground-breaking conference covering various aspects of health informatics will be held at the University of Southern Indiana from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 23 in the University Center. The sixth annual Health Informatics Tri-State Summit (HITS) bring together some of the brightest and most impactful Health Informatics and Information Management professionals from across the United States, sharing their experiences and future projections in an insightful set of presentations for professionals of all ages. The one-day event will be particularly relevant, to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technologists, and others whose scope of practice is related to health informatics, including students, who can attend at a reduced rate.

New for 2019, instead of having just one keynote speaker, HITS will feature Kym and Ross Martin who are returning to USI to lead this year’s conference. They were keynote speakers in in 2016 (Kym) and 2017 (Ross).

Kym Martin hails from the greater Washington, D.C. area and received her bachelor of science in Business Administration degree from Bryant University and her Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Connecticut. She is a certified holistic nutrition consultant, fitness trainer and cancer survivor who is passionate about enhancing the patient experience in healthcare.

Dr. Ross Martin is a renowned international speaker and songwriter who closed the 2017 conference with a fun and high-energy keynote. He is the program director for Research and Transformation at CRISP, the regional health information exchange serving Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia and the surrounding region. As an accomplished vocalist, musician and writer, Martin is also president and founder of The American College of Medical Informatimusicology.

“I have been speaking and writing about the transformation of healthcare through IT for more than 20 years, and Kym has been telling her story as a four-time cancer survivor as a keynote speaker since 2013,” said Ross Martin. “This conference represents the first time we are both speaking at the same event, and we are so excited to be able to share our story as a couple making our way through the complexities of healthcare and this human experience. Kym will tell you about the WHY, and I will focus on the WAY!”

Kym Martin echoed these sentiments. “We have been talking about sharing our story as a dynamic duo for years and are thrilled to do so at HITS19. We hope our message humanizes the impact that people experience as they navigate our health system and catalyzes change,” she said. “The event is a favorite of ours because of the stellar level of experts, attendees, engagement and content.”

The Health Informatics Tri-State Summit will feature additional speakers and poster presentations on a variety of topics related to health informatics technology, including cybersecurity and security challenges, telehealth’s role in health informatics and patient portals.

For the first time, HITS will feature the CIO/CMIO Roundtable, a closed session focused on the local, regional and National Interoperability landscape and how to best prepare healthcare organizations to meet the needs of Tri-State residents, according to Dr. Gabriela Mustata Wilson, associate professor of Health Informatics and chair of USI’s Health Informatics and Information Management Program.

“In the past few years, there has been an amplified focus on reducing health care costs and improving quality, which has driven the need for prompt and complete access to clinical information,” she said. “Alliances need to be built, and conversations need to happen if we want to improve data exchange at all levels.”

Mustata Wilson said the growth of the Health Informatics Tri-State Summit over the past six years would not have been possible without the support of the Indiana chapter of HIMSS. Ethel Massing, current president of the Indiana chapter, reinforces the importance of this event at the state level. “The Indiana Chapter of HIMSS has served as a co-provider of the Health Informatics Tri-State Summit since its launch in 2014,” she said. “We are proud of how many of our members have shared their expertise in this setting or attended it over the years.”

Collaboration and sharing of information is critical to patient care, according to Stephanie Hojan, president of the Kentucky Bluegrass HIMSS Chapter. “HITS 2019 is a great regional opportunity to connect with peers to listen to and discuss ideas for all of us to do better and be better,” she said.

The registration fee is $125, $100 for HIMSS members and $20 for students, if registering by October 14, 2019.

Individuals interested in attending the event can still register by visiting this link, and all pertinent information regarding the conference can be found at the official website by clicking here.

A team of University of Southern Indiana students and faculty representing the University’s Engineering Program spent eight weeks in Mdlasomi, eSwatini in Southern Africa assisting in the construction of a 95-meter footbridge over the Ngwempisi River—a project with life-saving implications.

Josef Winkler, mechanical engineering senior from Owensboro, Kentucky, and Koby Lindner, a mechanical engineering sophomore from Boonville, Indiana, alongside Dr. Jason Hill, associate professor of engineering, and Justin Amos, lab manager, spent their summer living in Mdlasomi with the local townspeople.

The USI contingent traveled as part of a team from Cornell University, who had designed and coordinated the project through the Engineers in Action (EIA) Bridge Program, a collegiate program of the larger EIA program that works with indigenous professionals to improve the lives of people in need through sustainable programs that build their capacity while also helping to develop global awareness among program participants. USI’s Engineering Program is in the early stages of building its own collegiate chapter of EIA, and the trip was part of an effort to put the University in a place where it can eventually lead its own bridge project from start to finish.

The new bridge provides surrounding communities year-round passage to the town of Mankayne. In 2018, 16 people died while trying to cross the Ngwempisi River during high water. The professionally-designed and -constructed bridge allows for safe and unimpeded foot traffic to markets, jobs, and a government hospital.

View a gallery of high-definition photos from the eSwatini Bridge Project

USI students and faculty coordinated with the Cornell chapter of EIA on the bridge design process during the spring 2019 semester. The summer trip to Mdlasomi brought the project full circle, allowing the students and faculty to see in person what it took to build a bridge that would serve more than 540 homesteads in the immediate area. “Our role was simply observing and learning,” said Lindler. “But we worked the same as everyone else—moving rocks, mixing concrete, pulling cables. We were working manually every day.”

In 2018, there were only eight collegiate chapters of EIA in the United States. The USI chapter would work with peer chapters at institutions such as the University of Notre Dame, the University of Colorado–Boulder, and Cornell.

 

“This project was a tag-along to learn the ropes and prepare for a future project where USI takes more of a leadership role,” said Hill. “We hope to do a second shared project next year, where we take on 50% of the project work. By the third year, we hope to be able to do a solo project.”

“We were seeing how the logistic manager does their job, the construction manager does their job,” said Lindner. “USI would like to do their own project, so we wanted to see what you actually do in these roles.”

Beyond the experience of physically building the bridge, Winkler and Lindler connected with the local people and lived within their culture, seeing directly how the new bridge would impact the community and the lives of individuals. Both students celebrated their birthdays while in eSwatini, and Winkler, a member of the USI Men’s Soccer team, even managed to keep his training up by helping organize soccer matches between different communities near the building site. “I still have connections that I made in Africa that text me about soccer,” said Winkler. “Usually it’s harder for students on our team to travel. I’m thankful for the support I got to do this.”

“Building a bridge was only about 40% of the trip,” said Lindler. “The rest was cultural relations–learning about a different culture, talking to the people. We went there to interact with people and experience a different culture in addition to engineering.”

Following eight weeks of construction, the bridge was completed on August 2 with the help of community members, the Bridge Corps and countless hours of work from the students. As USI prepares to undertake its own projects with EIA, the experiences of traveling, absorbing a new culture and working on a project with a life-saving impact resonate strongly with Lindner and Winkler, who both say they will be involved with future EIA projects.

“This project, and where it is taking us when we look toward a future chapter of EIA, is what we mean when we talk about offering quality education and academic excellence,” said Dr. Zane Mitchell, dean of USI’s Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education. “This kind of hands-on experience is changing lives, whether it is for the people of the town or our students who are being shaped both academically and socially in a way that will stick with them for a long time to come. This is the kind of project that embodies the University’s mission to ‘prepare individuals to live wisely in a diverse and global community.’ We’re excited about the future.”

For more information about USI’s Engineering Programs, contact Dr. Paul Kuban, chair of the Engineering Department, at pkuban@usi.edu.