SE Valley Times

Improving the emergency room experience, revolutionizing blood draws, and creating a more flexible SurgiSlinky to replace bones are among the innovative ideas that emerged from the eight-day Arizona Solutions for Global Health workshop. Presented by ASU Health on behalf of the Plus Alliance, the event concluded on August 14 and aimed to address complex medical problems.

Twenty-one participants, including entrepreneurs, ASU faculty and graduate students, and healthcare professionals, were divided into five teams. These teams spent two days observing clinical environments at Barrow Neurological Institute and HonorHealth facilities. They identified specific problems and then spent several days developing solutions.

The teams made three-minute pitches to a panel of judges at ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus.

“This is important because it’s going to allow us to create or design an innovative product or system that can make a difference in patients’ lives,” said Michael Collins, a senior director and clinical assistant professor in ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation.

The workshop partnered with Kings College London. Genevieve Bautista Young, vice president and chief operating officer of ASU Health, mentioned plans to select some participants for a weeklong immersion at Kings College with Professor Prashant Jha to further develop their ideas.

“We call it the Innovation Fellow experience,” Young said. “They’ll work with mentors and talk about their ideas and see if they translate to different health care systems. From there, they’ll further refine their idea into workable solutions.”

One team included Collins; Errold Glenn Elad, an ASU graduate student who founded Ethical Health Solutions; Ben Gifford, an internal medicine physician at HonorHealth; and Providencia Morales, a nurse in the Veterans Affairs Phoenix healthcare system.

On their second day of clinical visits, this team spoke with emergency room doctors and nurses at HonorHealth Scottsdale Thompson Peak Medical Center aiming to improve patient experiences in emergency rooms.

“How can we help relieve their anxieties and help the process?” Morales asked. “It’s about improving patient satisfaction.”

Gifford highlighted how fresh perspectives could identify obvious problems within hospital procedures or products that might be overlooked by those regularly within the system.

“Even if we can make a small difference," he noted, "it might make a huge difference because these systems may be implemented for years."

Their idea called Waypoints aims to enhance patient experience through better communication from arrival at emergency rooms. It includes video tutorials explaining processes and next steps in care. Collins emphasized reducing patient anxiety as a primary goal.

“The problem is going to the emergency room sucks,” he stated. “Can we help along that entire journey of a patient?”

The team behind Lab Cow—a computerized phlebotomy cart designed to accelerate results—received the highest scores from judges.

Young expressed satisfaction with the workshop's outcomes: “There is so much enthusiasm from each of the teams coming out of the workshop. We are excited to continue working with them.”