Waterloo students rewarded for their efforts to bring 'e-health' in line online


Career success often depends on an ability to look around your industry, find a need that's not being met and come up with a way to meet it.

By this criterion, the careers of two University of Waterloo students are off to a promising start.

Health sciences student Pavel Roshanov and Noemi Chanda, who is studying economics and sociology, recently combined their efforts to come up with an "e-health" solution for the overburdened health- care system.

Their shared burst of creative energy was prompted by a competition for students at Conestoga College in southwestern Ontario, and the University of Waterloo, sponsored by Agfa HealthCare, an international firm that specializes in workflow information technology and diagnostic imaging.

"We wanted to engage the younger population to help us think outside the box, " says Jeff Nesbitt, Agfa's director of external partnerships in Waterloo, Ont. "We asked them to look at health care from an e-health perspective; to think about the interactive technologies that exist today and come up with ways to develop such things within the health care industry."

Thirty-three student teams from disciplines such as computer and software engineering, health informatics, mathematics and business accepted the challenge. Ten finalist teams were selected; each was mentored by medical practitioners and Agfa staff before presenting their ideas to a panel of experts.

Roshanov, 22, and Chanda, 21, won the contest, proposing a software program to help cardiovascular patients manage anticoagulation therapy from home.

E-health, according to the Journal of Internet Medical Research, is "an emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business, referring to health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies"

Some view it in a broader context. E-health, they say, is a mindset, an attitude based on the belief that effective use of information and communication technology will improve health care services, locally, regionally and worldwide.
Encouraging this mindset was an appealing feature of the winning proposal, says Nesbitt. "What really grabbed us was that it helped people become actively engaged in managing their own health care and increased dialogue around their issues in an e-health context."

Reduction of health care costs was also a factor, of course. When paired with existing monitoring devices, says Chanda, the software they propose "would reduce the amount of time people spend in doctors' offices and the money that costs. It could be attached to some of the new health information systems that are being developed and enhance their value."

As winners of the 2008 Agfa HeathCare Innovation Award, Roshanov and Chanda were whisked off to Agfa's head office in Belgium to pitch their winning idea to the firm's global chief technology officer.
"We got a lot of great feedback from the experts there, " Roshanov says.

They also gained invaluable career experience and learned first hand about meeting real needs with real solutions.

Both plan to work with Agfa to advance their concept.

"We're thinking about allowing students or other researchers to make a prototype of the system, " says Chanda. "It's in the works."

The health care industry is a bright spot in an otherwise grim employment scene at the moment. Agfa HealthCare, for example, recently announced that a grant of $29.6 million from the Ontario government will support its own investment of nearly $200 million in its research, development and regional operation centres in Toronto and Waterloo. A hundred new jobs will be created, the company says; 276 existing jobs will be enhanced.

Copyright 2009 Janis Foord Kirk