In brief: Preventing disease
Avoiding hospital re-admissions
Mark Braverman, an assistant professor of computer science, is helping solve a pressing problem in health care: how to prevent patients from relapsing soon after being discharged from a hospital. During a previous stint at Microsoft Research, Braverman helped develop software that allows computers to “learn” based on actual patient data those patients that are most at risk so that hospitals can tailor their post-discharge care and avoid re-admissions. Microsoft released the software as part of its hospital-data management product in spring 2011.
Protecting blood to prevent neurological damage
Alexander Smits, chair and the Eugene Higgins Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, is working with students to understand the ways that sheer forces and turbulence damage blood cells. The work could lead to new designs for heart-lung bypass machines, which are commonly used in surgeries but are thought to cause neurological damage and other complications. The researchers have described the behavior of blood over a very wide range of conditions, more precisely than ever done before.
