Finalist Project Summaries
PI / project lead in bold
- Coaching Peripheral Nerve Surgery with Mixed Reality – The Time is Now
Christopher Dy, MD, MPH, FACS, Associate Professor, Orthopedic Surgery Division of Hand and Microsurgery, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis
Use Mixed Reality (MR) headsets to assess the efficacy of surgical training for highly specialized procedures, including peripheral nerve surgery - Machine Learning Assisted Diagnosis of Delirium (ML-ADD)
Robert Young, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Division of Hospital Medicine and General Medicine and Geriatrics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis
Build an inpatient floor delirium machine learning (ML) model based on the BJH two-step delirium detection system to better risk stratify patients and deliver an intensive surveillance and management system - Addressing Wait Time Issues in Primary Care
Nicholas Roth, Patient Experience Manager, BJC Healthcare
Leverage technology to improve patient communication and team member education/training to proactively reduce patient wait times for primary care visits - Presenting Patient Histories as Stories
Caitlin Kelleher, PhD, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
Utilize a story format for patient prior history and hospital care to enable clinicians to more efficiently review patient histories and more accurately recall the details for their patients - Multimodal Patient Education Initiate to Improve Outcomes in Hepatopancreaticobiliary Surgery
Natasha Leigh, MD, Director of ERAS for Hepatopancreaticobiliary Surgery, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis
Assess the use of multimodal patient education to impact postoperative complications, hospital length of stay, readmission rates, and adherence to postoperative milestones - Harnessing Machine Learning for the Transition to Automated Healthcare-Associated Infection Surveillance
Jonas Marschall, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis
Create and assess performance of an automated, machine learning-assisted surveillance module for the three reportable HAIs in comparison to current state manual processes
Wondering what our Big Ideas winners have been up to?
Hear updates from the teams since receiving their project seed funding — what they’ve learned and achieved while implementing their big ideas.
Presenting Teams
Improving Diagnosis of Superimposed Preeclampsia in Pregnant Patients: A Wearable Device for Non-invasive Continuous Monitoring of Fluid Dynamics, PI / Project Lead: Valene Garr Barry
Intelligent Clinical Decision Support for Perioperative Blood Management, PI / Project Lead: Sunny Lou
Remote Blood Pressure Monitoring, PI / Project Lead: Jennifer Schmidt and Jenna Smith
Evaluation and Validation of a Mobile Application for Patient Functional Assessment in Spinal Surgery, PI / Project Lead: Camilo Molina and Miguel Ruiz Cardozo
Care Transition TRUST: Technology to Reinforce Understanding and Support Trust, PI / Project Lead: Mark Williams
Expediting Radiotherapy Initiation via a Simulation Free Workflow, PI / Project Lead: Tianyu Zhao
Finalist Project Summaries
- NLP in BPAs
PI/Project Lead – Philip Asaro, MD | Director, Emergency Medicine Informatics, Applications & Analytics; Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine
Test Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities to scan ED nursing notes and identify patients eligible for clinical trials to build real-time alerts
- Digital Colonoscopy Navigator
PI/Project Lead – Juan Reyes Genere, MD | Assistant Professor of Medicine, Gastroenterology
Create a digital healthcare interface to improve the pre-colonoscopy phase of care by reducing cancellation rates - Smart Kitchen to Support Independence for People with Subjective Cognitive Decline
PI/Project Lead – Lisa Connor, PhD, MSOT, OTR/L | Professor, Program in Occupational Therapy
Use digital recordings and AI to create a smart, assistive system that can recognize cognitive errors and give customized cues in the home - Assessing the impact of workload on nurse turnover
PI/Project Lead – Thomas Kannampallil, PhD | Director of Acute Care Innovation Research; Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology and the Institute for Informatics; Associate Chief Research Information Officer, School of Medicine
Assess the contributors to nursing turnover and develop targeted, systems-level interventions to impact turnover rates - Healthy Link: Integrating Food as Medicine into Inpatient Discharge Process
PI/Project Lead – Jing Li, MD, DrPH, MS | Associate Professor of Medicine, General Medical Science
Build pathway to provide healthy food to patients who identify as food insecure by creation of a community-driven food access model - Using Biomedical Informatics and Artificial Intelligence to Support the Early Diagnosis of Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy
PI/Project Lead – Jacob Greenberg, MD, MSCI | Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery (August 2023)
Create a predictive model that can successfully identify degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) early and determine the most effective use of this tool clinically - Integration of Measurement Based Mental Healthcare in Pediatric Primary Care Offices to Address the Mental Health Crisis
PI/Project Lead – Celina Jacobi, MD | Instructor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Associate Medical Director of the Child Psychiatry Consult-Liaison Service, Associate Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program
Imbed a licensed clinical social worker in a pediatric practice to proactively treat mental health reducing wait time for treatment, increase mental health support, and decrease ED visits for crises - A data-driven approach facilitating patient flow and improving patient outcomes at discharge in the Heart Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital
PI/Project Lead – Lydia Wood, RN, BSN, CPEN | Inpatient Nurse Case Manager – Heart Center – St. Louis Children’s Hospital
Assess the role of a transition coordinator for pediatric cardiac patients being discharged to home to improve patient discharge planning, communication, and patient/family experience - Reducing hemolysis and blood culture contamination rates in the Barnes Jewish Hospital Emergency Department through Automated Collector Evaluations (ACEs)
PI/Project Lead – Mark Zaydman, MD, PhD | Assistant Professor, Pathology & Immunology
Pilot a web-based application aimed at reducing lab specimen redraws due to hemolysis and contamination by use of an integrated, performance-based educational intervention - “FAST Stability Project”: Cancer Hospital Care–Facilitating Access through a Safe Test of Stability
PI/Project Lead – Patricia Litkowski, MD | Assistant Professor and Lead Oncology Hospitalist
Assess a custom-built tool intended to reduce patient length of stay, increase patient satisfaction and aid clinicians in determining timing of hospital discharge - Ambient Artificial Intelligence – Enhancing Productivity, Increasing Throughput, and Improving the Patient and Clinician Experience in the BJH ED
PI/Project Lead – Christopher Palmer, MD, FCCM | Associate Professor, Anesthesiology & Emergency Medicine
Pilot an AI powered, voice enabled application to reduce clinician documentation time increasing documentation quality and time spent on patient interactions - Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Medical Student Mental Health with a Tailored Online Therapist-Matching Platform
PI/Project Lead – Jessica Gold, MD, MS | Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Seek to improve access and utilization of mental healthcare for medical students by testing an online platform that matches patients to therapists
Wondering what our Big Ideas winners have been up to?
Hear updates from the teams since receiving their project seed funding — what they’ve learned and achieved while implementing their big ideas.
Presenting Teams
- Avoiding Pulmonary Complications after Major Abdominal Surgery Using Novel Digital Incentive Spirometry Technology, PI / Project Lead: Chet W. Hammill and Chenyang Lu
- Prediction of Persistent and Profound Intraoperative Hypoxemia in Pediatric Patients to Mitigate Life Threatening Events and Improve Patient Safety, PI / Project Lead: Michael C. Montana and Thomas Kannampallil
- Using Mobile Health Technology to Capture Physical, Functional and Psychosocial Features that Predict Recovery after Lumbar Fusion, PI / Project Lead: Wilson Z. Ray and Jacob Greenberg
- User-Centered Design of a Digital Health Solution to Improve Symptom Management in Advanced Cancer Care, PI / Project Lead: Karla T. Washington
- Clinical Translation of a Device and System for Preventing the Development of Pressure Ulcers, PI / Project Lead: Amanda Westman and Justin M. Sacks
2022 Finalists
- Artificial Intelligence Based Treatment Planning Workflow for Decision Making in Proton Therapy, Project lead: Baozhou Sun, PhD
- Biomarker Technology for Early Prediction of Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy, Project lead: Simon Haroutounian, PhD, MSc
- Care Transition TRUST; TRust through Understanding via Smart use of Technology, Project lead: Mark Williams, MD
- Evaluation and Validation of a Mobile Application for Patient Functional Assessment in Spinal Surgery, Project lead: Camilo Molina, MD
- Expediting Radiotherapy Initiation via a Simulation Free Workflow, Project lead: Tianyu Zhao, PhD
- Improving Diagnosis of Superimposed Preeclampsia in Pregnant Patients: A Wearable Device for Non-invasive Continuous Monitoring of Fluid Dynamics, Project leads: Ebony Carter, MD, MPH, and Valene Garr Barry, PhD
- Intelligent Clinical Decision Support for Perioperative Blood Management, Project lead: Sunny Lou, MD, PhD
- Reduction of Blood Culture Contamination Through a Data Driven Targeted Education Campaign, Project lead: Mark Zaydman, MD, PhD
- Remote Blood Pressure Monitoring, Project lead: Jennifer Schmidt, MD
- Using Three Dimensional Movement Data and Deep Learning to Predict Recovery in Cervical Myelopathy, Project lead: Brenton Pennicooke, MD
2021 Panel of Judges
- Michael Avidan (WUSM)
- Deb O’Dell (BJC)
- John Lynch (BJC)
- Clay Dunagan (BJC)
- Ebony Carter (WUSM)
- Thomas Kannampallil (WUSM)
2021 Big Ideas Finalists
- Determine if step counts recorded in fitness trackers worn by adolescent and young adults undergoing cancer treatment correlate to Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) questionnaire responses, PI / Project Lead: Amy Armstrong, MD
- Leverage digital device to determine the efficacy of an incentive spirometer to improve pulmonary function in the preoperative and postoperative surgical setting, PI / Project Lead: Chet W. Hammill, MD
- Development and implementation of a statistical model to identify malfunctioning clinical decision support, PI / Project Lead: Keith F. Woeltje, MD, PhD
- Implementation of mobile health technology in the form of wearable sensors for pre-transplant patients assessed as meeting the condition of frailty, PI / Project Lead: Kevin M. Korenblat, MD
- Collaboration to develop technology that allows low-risk patients to start heart rhythm medications safely at home, PI / Project Lead: Albert Lai, PhD
- Expansion of MY HEART clinic services to a virtual platform with integration of nurse-based nutrition counseling, PI / Project Lead: Kathryn J. Lindley, MD
- Prediction of persistent and profound intraoperative hypoxemia in pediatric patients to mitigate life threatening events and improve patient safety, PI / Project Lead: Michael C. Montana, MD, PhD
- Using mobile health technology to capture physical, functional and psychosocial features that predict recovery after lumbar fusion, PI / Project Lead: Wilson Ray, MD
- Hypoglycemia predictor tool, PI / Project Lead: Amy E. Riek, MD
- Completion of the user-centered design of ENVISION (Engagement and Visualization to Improve Symptoms In Oncology care), resulting in a fully functional version of the digital tool that would address the pressing need for improved symptom management in hospice care, PI / Project Lead: Karla T. Washington, PhD
- Validation of the first single use, disposable device (i.e., Mercury Patch) capable of performing continuous pressure monitoring and preventing pressure injury development and progression, PI / Project Lead: Amanda Westman, PhD