University of Maryland-Hosted Workshop set for Nov. 3-4 in D.C.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Consumers via online communities are sharing information and connecting with each other at unprecedented levels. But to what extent can this phenomenon affect healthcare? A recent study led by Ritu Agarwal at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business identifies two advantages of online communities toward closing the rural-urban gap in access to quality healthcare.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Online communities are helping patients find and share information and connect with each other at unprecedented levels. But can they also create social value by helping to bridge the disparities between rural and urban health care?

Information technology belongs in health care, but humans need time to figure out the best ways to work with machines like IBM’s Watson, participants said Oct. 21-22 at the 2016 Workshop on Health IT and Economics (WHITE) in Washington, D.C. Integration will require input from diverse players across the health care ecosystem, said keynote speaker Anil Jain, Explorys and IBM Watson Health senior vice president and chief medical officer. “Progress will be incremental,” he said. “We have a lot of smart people engaging with think tanks and other organizations.”

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Front-line protection of U.S. communities against disease epidemics relies on seamless information sharing between public health officials and doctors, plus the wherewithal to act on that data. But health departments have faltered in this mission by lacking guidance to effectively strategize about appropriate IT investments.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and the Tata Group of Companies hosted the Tata Dialogue on Innovation luncheon on April 1, 2016, at the College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. The featured speaker was Shankar Venkateswaran, chief of Tata Sustainability Group, who discussed the challenges of taking sustainability from policy to practice.

Robert H. Smith ’50 came to the University of Maryland as an undergraduate student with passion for real estate development and quest for adventure. “The person who is afraid to take risks and make mistakes will never achieve everything of which he or she is capable,” he said more than 60 years later during a 2008 commencement address at his alma mater.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Hillary Clinton on Tuesday aligned herself with a growing political movement: People who seek repeal of the Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac Tax," a surcharge on the most generous plans offered by employers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is working to harness fast-accumulating personal health data from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and wearable devices. But more than 90 percent of analysts’ efforts to capitalize on that data falls below the targeted efficiency level for the FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Biometrics in its Center for Device and Radiological Health, said Isaac Chang, who directs post-market surveillance for that office. “We have observations of signals and patterns,” he said. “But they’re one-off maps.”

UMD Smith Researchers to Join Experts to Address Harnessing mHealth, Social Media Data for Medical-Product Safety The Food and Drug Administration is looking to get, and stay, on the same page with producers and users of medical wearables. The FDA mission to regulate medical devices to protect consumers is challenged by the mobile health field continuously innovating new products.