CHSRA receives
quality contract The Center for Health Systems Research and Analysis (CHSRA) has received a $225,000 contract from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide evaluation and data analytic services to the Wisconsin Collaborative for HealthCare Quality as part of the nationwide Better Quality Information to Improve Care for Medicare Beneficiaries.
Awards were made to six states and involve analyzing Medicare claims data to help physicians assess and improve the quality of care they deliver, and to assist Medicare patients in making more informed healthcare decisions.
In addition, the project will help CMS determine cost-effective methods of aggregating Medicare data to produce the most accurate measures of care quality. CHSRA Senior Scientist Robert Stone Newsom is the principal investigator for the project.
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FACULTY NEWS
The National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $149,854 grant to Assistant Professor Oguzhan Alagoz to study the liver allocation system. “Optimizing Liver Allocation System Considering Patient Preferences” will explore improvements to the liver allocation system for patients with end-stage liver diseases, taking into account patient acceptance preferences, medical urgency and transplant benefits—three factors that influence the current system. Alagoz hopes to develop a new system that will reduce wasted organs and have applications in other organ allocation systems as well.
Carla Alvarado, a research scientist in the Center for Quality Productivity Improvement, has been named the recipient of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) William A. Rutala Research Award. The award recognizes the best abstract from original research dealing with disinfection sterilization. Alvarado received the honor for her study, “The evaluation of nasendoscope sheaths used as protective barriers.” The results showed that the protective sheaths used around endoscopic tubes are of such high sterile quality that the scopes need not undergo high-level disinfection after use. With this honor, Alvarado is now the only person to date who has received all three major APIC awards.
Professor Vicki Bier was honored with the 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA). The award recognizes her contributions to risk science, which range from the military to the workplace to health- care and beyond. She accepted the honor at the SRA annual meeting December 11.
Jean Manchester Biddick Professor of Women’s Health Molly Carnes, also of industrial and systems engineering, was one of seven selected as 2008 fellows of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). Founded in 1971, AWIS is the largest multidisciplinary scientific organization for women in the United States. Carnes, nominated for her leadership in the fight to make academia a comfortable place for women, directs the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute at UW-Madison. She received the honor at a reception held February 17 in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
Professor Darek Ceglarek served as chair of two major international engineering conferences in 2007. In October, he chaired the European Manufacturing Strategies Summit in Dusseldorf, Germany. In July, he served as co-chair for the 2007 World Congress on Engineering (WCE), organized by the International Association of Engineers in London. WCE was a conglomeration of 15 conferences related to engineering developments in Europe. The conference focused on frontier topics in theoretical and applied engineering and computer science. In addition, Ceglarek was an honorary co-chair of the 2007 International Conference of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management.
Research Professor David Gustafson and Assistant Scientist Bret Shaw received a $49,586 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how Second Life, an Internet-based 3-D virtual world, may be used to improve addiction treatment outcomes. Second Life is a virtual community built and owned by users, who can trade goods, form groups and communicate with other users.
Assistant Professor Ben-Tzion Karsh is among 23 UW-Madison graduates recently honored by the Wisconsin Alumni Association. The new “Forward Under 40” award recognizes alumni who, while still under the age of 40, have lived the Wisconsin Idea—the guiding philosophy of UW-Madison outreach efforts to touch the lives of people throughout Wisconsin and the world. Karsh was named for his research dedicated to preventing medical errors, particularly among children and the elderly, which has attracted more than $2.7 million in funding. A profile of Karsh and his work is available at forwardunder40.com./karsh.html.
Collaboration among UW-Madison engineers, researchers at UW-Stout, the Office of the Governor and numerous partners in the Wisconsin printing and packaging industry officially kicked off February 15. The Partnership for Innovation (PFI) in Wisconsin’s Packaging and Printing Industry Cluster is made possible by a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The Wisconsin packaging and printing industry is a major source of employment for the state: Nationwide, Wisconsin is ranked first in plastic film packaging, first in paper, fourth in metal cans packaging, ninth in corrugated and fiber board packaging, and 11th in folding cartons packaging.
The PFI will create, transfer and apply advanced packaging and printing technology, leading to the development of new packaging and printing products and processes. UW-Madison faculty involved in the project include Professor Raj Veeramani, Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Marc Anderson, Electrical & Computer Engineering Professor Dan van der Weide (also biomedical engineering), and College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy.
A new real-time text function has been added to the popular America Online (AOL) Instant Messager (IM), allowing users to see each other’s text live as it is typed. This option, included in the latest beta version of AIM 6.8, grew from collaboration among AOL, the Trace Center at UW-Madison, and the Gallaudet University Technology Access Program. The real-time text option will be particularly useful for people who rely on text messaging as a primary means of communication—especially those who are deaf or hard of hearing. The receiver will be able to see each letter that the sender types, in real time, rather than waiting to view the entire message until after the “send” button is pressed. Users can respond and react to words as they are typed, giving a closer approximation to spoken conversation. News of the application appeared in numerous media outlets worldwide.
A January 21 story in the Washington Post quoted Professor Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the Trace Center. Vanderheiden explained that the purpose of the real-time application is to add emphasis and intonation, making text conversation more like verbal. “It’s not there to expose all your little typos,” he said. To read more, go to trace.wisc.edu/news/archives/000249.php.
