Drs. Valeria Makeeva and tina sankhla receive 2020 adopt-a-resident grants
by Mohsina Yusuf
Emory Radiology’s Adopt-A-Resident program provides funding and faculty mentorship for our radiology residents to undertake and complete specialized projects that advance the quality of clinical, academic, and research training. Recipients of the Adopt-A-Resident grant harness the power of technology to improve training and create innovative program tracks to prepare trainees as educators, researchers, informatics specialists, and medical entrepreneurs.
Third-year residents Drs. Valeria Makeeva and Tina Sankhla were awarded the Adopt-A-Resident grants for 2020.
Dr. Makeeva’s project, “HL7-Shield: A Versatile HL7 Listener Software for Automated Follow-Up Tracking” was inspired after 1.2 million imaging studies performed at Emory in 2017.
in general, incidental findings are reported in 10 to 30% of imaging studies with 5% of reports recommending further work-up, presenting an opportunity to address a serious medical condition at an early treatable stage and reduce morbidity. However, an estimated 10-60% of patients fail to receive the recommended workup.
Applying these statistics just to Emory’s 1.2 million imaging studies completed in 2017, about 60,000 of those studies would have recommended further workup, but at least 39,600 of those patients would not have received such a workup. This failure represents a patient safety threat and relates to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Meaningful Measures framework within the Quality Payment Program (QPP) and Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) Program.
Dr. Makeeva proposes to shift the current paradigm for incidental findings follow-up for early-disease patients by developing and evaluating a fully-automated and scalable HL7 tool for differentiating radiology patients most at risk for follow-up loss.
The HL7-Shield aims to build a fund of knowledge surrounding incidental findings follow-up by out-performing current semi-automated models; generating the necessary data volume to make meaningful conclusions; and investigating the characteristics of providers, patients, modalities, and recommendation types associated with increased risk of follow-up loss. The long-term goal is to conduct a foundational analysis promoting future development of real-time follow-up interventions.
The HL7-Shield holds the promise of building a previously unavailable fund of knowledge surrounding incidental findings risk assessment, which can be used to design effective interventions for patients at a higher risk for follow-up loss.
Dr. Sankhla’s project, “IR in the Land of 1000 Hills: Development of Interventional Radiology Training Program in Rwanda,” aims to create an elective that sends Emory Radiology to learn and teach at a newly-developing interventional radiology program in Rwanda.
There are currently only 13 practicing radiologists in Rwanda, and the first formally trained interventional radiologist will soon be returning to Rwanda following training to establish an interventional radiology service. Organized by Dr. Nima Kokabi, Emory Radiology plans to send teams consisting of an attending IR, an IR technologist, and IR nurse from Emory to King Faisal Hospital up to three times annually for two weeks at a time to provide additional training and support for the Rwanda IR program. The establishment of a resident elective at Emory will provide invaluable experience for residents interested in global health and healthcare in under-resourced parts of the world.
Dr. Sankhla was inspired to submit this project proposal from her passions for interventional radiology and longstanding interest in global health.
“I strongly feel that by sharing the skillset needed for image guided procedures, we can have a profound positive impact on patient care in hospitals in developing nations,” says Dr. Sankhla. “Creating this resident elective will provide an opportunity for myself and my fellow residents to help share our knowledge with Rwandan residents.”
Once it’s safe to resume travel, the goal of the project is to send two Emory Radiology residents each year to Rwanda. Until then, Dr. Sankhla and the IR Global Health team are working on establishing a Memorandum of Understanding between the Emory University and University of Rwanda to facilitate the exchange of learners between the two universities.
Additionally, while the Adopt-A-Resident grant will generously support the resident elective for the first couple of years, the team will continue to work on securing a long-term funding to continue the elective in years to come.
Third-year residents Drs. Valeria Makeeva and Tina Sankhla were awarded the Adopt-A-Resident grants for 2020.
Dr. Makeeva’s project, “HL7-Shield: A Versatile HL7 Listener Software for Automated Follow-Up Tracking” was inspired after 1.2 million imaging studies performed at Emory in 2017.
in general, incidental findings are reported in 10 to 30% of imaging studies with 5% of reports recommending further work-up, presenting an opportunity to address a serious medical condition at an early treatable stage and reduce morbidity. However, an estimated 10-60% of patients fail to receive the recommended workup.
Applying these statistics just to Emory’s 1.2 million imaging studies completed in 2017, about 60,000 of those studies would have recommended further workup, but at least 39,600 of those patients would not have received such a workup. This failure represents a patient safety threat and relates to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Meaningful Measures framework within the Quality Payment Program (QPP) and Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) Program.
Dr. Makeeva proposes to shift the current paradigm for incidental findings follow-up for early-disease patients by developing and evaluating a fully-automated and scalable HL7 tool for differentiating radiology patients most at risk for follow-up loss.
The HL7-Shield aims to build a fund of knowledge surrounding incidental findings follow-up by out-performing current semi-automated models; generating the necessary data volume to make meaningful conclusions; and investigating the characteristics of providers, patients, modalities, and recommendation types associated with increased risk of follow-up loss. The long-term goal is to conduct a foundational analysis promoting future development of real-time follow-up interventions.
The HL7-Shield holds the promise of building a previously unavailable fund of knowledge surrounding incidental findings risk assessment, which can be used to design effective interventions for patients at a higher risk for follow-up loss.
Dr. Sankhla’s project, “IR in the Land of 1000 Hills: Development of Interventional Radiology Training Program in Rwanda,” aims to create an elective that sends Emory Radiology to learn and teach at a newly-developing interventional radiology program in Rwanda.
There are currently only 13 practicing radiologists in Rwanda, and the first formally trained interventional radiologist will soon be returning to Rwanda following training to establish an interventional radiology service. Organized by Dr. Nima Kokabi, Emory Radiology plans to send teams consisting of an attending IR, an IR technologist, and IR nurse from Emory to King Faisal Hospital up to three times annually for two weeks at a time to provide additional training and support for the Rwanda IR program. The establishment of a resident elective at Emory will provide invaluable experience for residents interested in global health and healthcare in under-resourced parts of the world.
Dr. Sankhla was inspired to submit this project proposal from her passions for interventional radiology and longstanding interest in global health.
“I strongly feel that by sharing the skillset needed for image guided procedures, we can have a profound positive impact on patient care in hospitals in developing nations,” says Dr. Sankhla. “Creating this resident elective will provide an opportunity for myself and my fellow residents to help share our knowledge with Rwandan residents.”
Once it’s safe to resume travel, the goal of the project is to send two Emory Radiology residents each year to Rwanda. Until then, Dr. Sankhla and the IR Global Health team are working on establishing a Memorandum of Understanding between the Emory University and University of Rwanda to facilitate the exchange of learners between the two universities.
Additionally, while the Adopt-A-Resident grant will generously support the resident elective for the first couple of years, the team will continue to work on securing a long-term funding to continue the elective in years to come.