UMMC/UMB Innovation Challenge Award Recipients Announced

This past summer, the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), in partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), launched the third annual UMMC/UMB Innovation Challenge, a competition offering several opportunities for awards up to $125k. This competition builds off our shared UMMS value discovery, welcoming all of you to submit ideas for improved solutions and novel practices that advance health outcomes for our patients, families, or team members located across the Downtown and/or Midtown Campuses.

The competition received a large number of sophisticated applications from multidisciplinary teams, creating our most competitive selection process yet. We also saw a diverse range of applications for this year’s Request for Proposal award category, a Healthy Work Environment.

After a four-month review period, seven submissions were selected. The award funding will support each team as they work to test or implement their innovation over a target timeframe of 12 to 18 months.

We want to thank all of the applicants for their time and effort in applying to the Innovation Challenge, and thank the Selection Committee and Innovation Challenge Leadership for their dedication to the program. It is inspiring to see all the submissions, demonstrating UMMC and UMB’s shared commitment to using smart, innovative solutions to shape the future of health care.

We are proud to announce the following seven awardees:

• Virtual Staining Improves Diagnostic Detection of Lymphoma in Small Biopsies to Decrease Turnaround Time, Reduce Unnecessary Open Surgical Biopsies, and Drive Health System Value
  Michael E. Kallen, MD; Kathryn Rice, MD; Ashley Cellini; Elba Vidal; Amy Plotkin, MD, PhD; Serge Alexanian, MD; Rima Koka, MD, PhD
• Dolphin: Accelerating Medical Insights with a UMMS-Specific Large Language Model Chatbot
  Michael Toland; Paul H. Yi, MD; Vishwa Parekh, PhD; Florence Doo, MD, MA; Peter Kamel, MD
• Use of POCUS to Improve Outcomes and Decrease Hospital Readmission in the LVAD Population
  Lynn Dees, RN, MS, ACNP; Manjula Ananthram, MBBS; Erik Sorensen, PhD; Amanda Nevin, DNP, CRNP, FNP-BC; Virginia Schlosser
• HEART: Hospital-based Exercise And Rehabilitative Technology
  Mukta C. Srivastava, MD; Gautam Venkat Ramani, MD; Brian Barr, MD FACC; Ashley Waak, BSN, RN, CCRN; Kristin E. Barron, PT, DPT; Mary Hoyt, PT;Kaitlyn Evans, MS, OTR/L, CSRS; Chris L. Wells, PhD, PT, CCS, ATC, FCCM; Michele Zimmer DNP, RN, CCRN-CMC
• Impact of Virtual Reality on Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Pain: a Pilot Study
  Kendyl Carlisle, MD; Julia Terhune, MD; Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, MS

Request for Proposal: Healthy Work Environment

• Team Member Wellbeing Through Kindness Media
  Jennifer Jasmine Arfaa, PhD, CPXP; Jennifer Ball, CPXP, BCPA; Stephanie Bentley; Nadia Cheevers, JD, BSN, CPHRM; David Fryburg, MD; Margo Murphy, MBA, PMP; Kerry Sobol, MBA, RN; Kara Stevens, MS, RN, CMSRN; Jady Yao, MSHSA, CPXP
• Improving Inter-professional Collaboration Between Residents and Nurses:  Escape Rooms and Simulation
  Bernadette Naquin, MSN, RN; Joel Alejandro, MD PGY-2; Rose Chasm, MD; Jung Hee-Jae, MD PGY-1; Abdel-latif Ismail, MD PGY-2; Tracy Baca, MSN, RN, CPPD; Mineisha Green, BSN, RN; Siham Hussein, MD PGY-3 

Congratulations to all the awardees, and thank you for sharing your unique approaches to innovation. We will share progress reports on the all the teams’ efforts over the next 18 months on the Innovation Challenge webpage.

We look forward to offering the Innovation Challenge Awards again next year and working with all of our talented colleagues to continue evolving the care we provide to our community.

Bert W. O’Malley, MD
President and Chief Executive Officer
University of Maryland Medical Center

Professor of Otorhinolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
University of Maryland School of Medicine

Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS
President
University of Maryland, Baltimore