Outlaw Leverages Data to Help People with HIV

January 12, 2024

[caption id="attachment_10946" align="alignleft" width="197"] Kaniqua Outlaw, CHIP alum[/caption]

Fall 2023 CHIP graduate, Kaniqua Outlaw is a Manager of Health Systems Integration at NASTAD - an organization that is driven to advance the health of people living with HIV/AIDS. Her internship during the Fall 2023 semester focused on utilizing Medicaid claims data to identify people with HIV to better support patient care.  Medicaid is the largest insurer for HIV care in the United States.  The medical data generated from Medicaid claims can help inform medical care for those people living with HIV.  Currently, the methods used for analyzing Medicaid data to identify people with HIV are not reliable.  Data can be of poor quality and incomplete or inaccurate, which impacts the ability to determine effectiveness of treatment and gaps in care.  Outlaw looked at the various considerations for identifying people with HIV, including ICD-10 codes for diagnosis and CPT codes for specific services related to HIV.  She worked to develop an algorithm that considers patient healthcare services received across states, links paid claims and patient encounter data, and also takes demographic variables into consideration.  Next steps for her project include developing a code to run the algorithm, implement queries and develop a synopsis of the process.

Kincaide Explores ChatGPT

January 12, 2024

[caption id="attachment_10943" align="alignright" width="189"] CHIP Alum, Heather Kincaide[/caption]

Heather Kincaide is a fall 2023 graduate of the CHIP program. During her last semester, she completed her internship, which was focused on the functionality of ChatGPT and being able to conduct a literature review utilizing the technology. She worked closely with her supervisor, Dr. Fei Yu to complete the project entitled An Empirical Study Evaluating ChatGPT's Performance in Generating Search Strategies for Systematic Reviews.  Her project began with a literature and social media review of how ChatGPT is currently being used or how it can be used to assist in academic research.  She then conducted a peer review of electronic search strategies using ChatGPT to formulate a research question, create a customized search strategy and discover recommended bibliographic databases.  This was followed by result evaluation by two professional librarians.  Findings indicated limitations with the technology such as challenges with accuracy and relevance, generalized answers and assumptions, difficulty with complex queries and the need for human oversight of use.  However, the technology can be a valuable tool for students and provide guidance on systematic reviews.  For librarians, ChatGPT can be a time saver and especially useful for search translation, teaching, and prioritizing research areas.  Heather was rewarded for her project and findings with the acceptance of her abstract by the Medical Library Association (MLA).  Congratulations to Heather on the completion of this challenging and interesting internship project!

Gotz Named Director of CHIP

January 9, 2024

The CHIP team is excited to announce that interim Director, Dr. David Gotz will be taking on the CHIP Director position permanently.  Since September 2023, Dr. Gotz has been the acting interim director for the program.   From the outset, he quickly demonstrated his excitement and commitment to the CHIP program, students, staff and faculty.  Dr. Gotz has helped to lead several programmatic and process improvements in the short period of time he has been in his role, including advocating and helping to secure a standing faculty committee for CHIP to support the curriculum and admissions processes , executing a CHIP faculty retreat that generated several ideas for improvement to the CHIP program and he has worked to establish a formal collaboration with UNC School of Data Science. The School of Data Science will now become a member of the CHIP consortium (joining the School of Information and Library Science, 5 health affairs schools, Grad School, and Health Sciences Library). Commenting on his new role and continuing to work with the CHIP staff, Gotz said, "The year ahead promises to be an exciting one with many opportunities for us to continue pushing CHIP forward. I’m energized by the work we’ve done in just the last few months, and I can’t wait to continue our work together."

CHIP Students Win Penn Healthcare Case Competition

December 4, 2023

CHIP Master’s degree students Sanju Rajan and Shilpa Sundar, along with 4 other students from universities across the US, were part of a team that won the 2023 Penn Healthcare Consulting Case Competition. The

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="156"] Sanju Rajan[/caption]

Penn Healthcare Case Competition is a virtual event organized by Penn Biotech Group (PBG) and PennHealthX, two cross-disciplinary graduate and professional degree student organizations at the University of Pennsylvania for those interested in management/strategy consulting, venture capital in life sciences, biotech, and pharmaceutical industries. According to their website, their mission is to "highlight the talents and problem-solving strengths of students from top-tier graduate and professional degree programs, along with postdoctoral fellows, while also providing a platform for them to connect with other outstanding participants and highly accomplished judges from top-tier firms".  The winning CHIP team, dubbed the “Flu Fighters”, worked to solve a real world healthcare problem centered around Leveraging AI and ML for a small biotech company call Amicus Therapeutics.  The company wanted to understand how to best leverage AI and ML to support its growth and value. Some key business questions that the team had to answer included:

  • Who are their immediate competitors?
  • What are their immediate needs?
  • What are the strategic recommendations and next steps going forward?
  • What should the budget look like?

    [caption id="" align="alignright" width="166"] Shilpa Sundar[/caption]

  • What are the risks and challenges that they would face?
  • What are the internal capabilities that are required to support this change?

Shilpa SundarIn order to address these questions, the team created a benchmarking report outlining how pharma companies are deploying and partnering with AI/ML companies to support late-stage development and commercial growth including details on investments, partnerships, and structure of deals.  They developed a short- and long-term strategy for Amicus with recommendations for implementation of initiatives tailored around the budget.  They also outlined potential risks and barriers that should be considered and compiled a comprehensive internal capabilities report required to support the initiatives. Their strategic planning and solutions led to their first prize award.  The team members commented that "This achievement has not only added a significant milestone to our academic and professional journeys but also reinforced our passion for leveraging technology to make a positive impact in healthcare."

HISA and CHIP Collaborate to Offer Mentorship Program

December 1, 2023

[caption id="attachment_10897" align="alignright" width="237"] Ashley Victor, HISA President[/caption]

The Health Informatics Student Association (HISA) led by president and CHIP master's degree student, Ashley Victor, has collaborated with CHIP staff to offer mentoring and connections for incoming CHIP master’s students. Student mentors are current CHIP students paired with an incoming student to answer questions and offer advice prior to starting the program.  Victor and master's student Adishri Ashok Sapute worked collaboratively to pair interested incoming CHIP students with current students.  Erika Takeda, program coordinator for residential students, had the idea for such a program, but needed the HISA student organization to help make those connections.  Ashley indicated that she is "excited about the interest in the program" and hopes it will help students with their transition to UNC and the CHIP program.  Current CHIP mentors include Vidheesha Anandkumar Patel, Pamela Roxana Chacon Uscamaita, Adishri Ashok Sapute, and Tejaswini Velpuri.

HISA is a student led organization for health informatics students.  In addition to the mentorship program, the organization plans social events and other get togethers for the CHIP cohort. If you are interested in becoming a mentor or being part of the organization, please reach out to Ashley Victor at ashv@unc.edu.