Hsiao-Wecksler to lead new Jump ARCHES-funded project

1/31/2020 Colleen Reynolds, OSF Health

Written by Colleen Reynolds, OSF Health

Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler
Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler

MechSE Professor Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler will lead one of 14 new awards funded through the 2020 Jump ARCHES research and development program. Her project – “Autonomous Morphing Bed Mattress for ALS patients with Limited Movement Ability,” working with Dr. Christopher Zallek of OSF Healthcare/U of I College of Medicine, Peoria – will address complications from limited to no movement ability of adults while lying in bed, including patients with ALS who have weak muscles and loss of ability to control them. The team will develop an innovative bed mattress consisting of an array of soft air cells that will autonomously pressurize and depressurize specific areas to provide site-specific pressure relief, tilted repositioning, and assistance with transferring while the patient is lying flat or has their head elevated.

The Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation (Jump ARCHES), is a partnership between OSF HealthCare and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The ARCHES program supports research involving clinicians, engineers, and social scientists to develop technologies and devices that could revolutionize medical training and health care delivery. Faculty at the U of I College of Medicine at Peoria (UICOMP) also participate. Since its inception in 2014, the Jump ARCHES initiative has directed more than $3.7 million for 39 projects. 

The 14 research projects for 2020 will share $1.9 million in funding, and include:

“A Human Factors Approach to Food Security”
Dr. Sarah Stewart de Ramirez-OSF HealthCare and Abigail R. Wooldridge-U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering 

“A-Eye: Automated Retinopathy of Prematurity Detection and Analysis”
Dr. C. Reddy-OSF HealthCare and Thomas Huang-U of I’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

“Activate Capture and Digital Counting (AC+DC) Technology for Ultrasensitive and Rapid Characterization of miRNA Blood borne Biomarkers for ALS”
Dr. Vahid Tohidi-OSF HealthCare and Brian Cunningham-U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering 

“Artificial intelligence augmented portable photoacoustic imaging system for early diagnosis of breast cancer”
Dr. Kent Hoskins-OSF HealthCare and Yun-Sheng Chen-U of I’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

“Automated Aneurysm Segmentation and Measurement”
Dr. Jeff Klopfenstein-OSF HealthCare and Thomas Huang-U of I’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology 

“Design and Validation of a Soft Robotic Cardiac Transseptal Puncture Simulator”
Dr. Abraham Kocheril-OSF HealthCare and Girish Krishnan-U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering

“Development of a Digital Fall Risk Assessment and Prevention Tool for Rural Older Adults”
Dr. Sarah Stewart de Ramirez-OSF HealthCare and Jacob Sosnoff-U of I’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Engineering

“Digitizing the Neurological Screening Examination”
Dr. Christopher Zallek-OSF HealthCare/U of I College of Medicine, Peoria-UNICOMP and George Heintz-U of I’s Health Care Engineering Systems Center

“Improving Feedback and Efficiency: Automated Grading of Post Simulation Written Chart Notes”
Dr. William Bond-OSF HealthCare and Suma Bhat-U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering

“Improving Outcomes and Training of Pectus Excavatum”
Dr. Paul Jeziorczak-OSF HealthCare and Inki Kim-U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering 

“Optimizing Deployment of Community Health Workers”
Dr. Sarah Stewart de Ramirez-OSF HealthCare and Hyojung Kang-U of I’s College of Applied Health Sciences

“Skill Assessment in Surgery and Microsurgery”
Dr. Heidi Phillips-U of I’s College of Veterinary Medicine and T. Kesavadas-U of I’s Health Care Engineering Systems Center 

“Virtual Reality to Deliver Psychotherapy to Lung Cancer Patients with Depression”
Dr. Rhonda L. Johnson-OSF HealthCare and Rosalba Hernandez-U of I’s School of Social Work

OSF HealthCare, headquartered in Peoria, is owned and operated by The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, and consists of nearly 21,000 employees in 126 locations, including 13 hospitals, 11 Centers for Health and 15 OSF PromptCares throughout Illinois and Michigan. OSF Innovation, ranked among the top 10 innovation centers in the country, is located in the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center. Launched in 2016, OSF Innovation is a multidisciplinary innovation center focused on internal and external innovation to solve the largest health care challenges. 

Jump Simulation, a part of OSF Innovation, is a collaboration between University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria and OSF HealthCare. The center replicates a variety of patient care settings to ensure novice and seasoned clinicians can practice handling medical situations in a life-like environment. Boasting six floors and 168,000 square feet, the center is one of the largest of its kind and provides space for conferences, anatomic training, virtual reality and innovation.

More information can be found here.


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This story was published January 31, 2020.