2013 IT Innovation Contest

A team-based contest for creative IT solutions

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Another link on Care Links -- titled "The Updates"

Submitted by Freya Magnusson on August 16, 2013 - 4:05pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

I've worked at UCSF Medical Center for 1 year, UCSF Benioff's Children's Hospital for 6 years.  Prior and post hire, I volunteered on 12 Long, 10 ICC, and the Emergency Department.

 

The consensus I see a need for, from all experiences is the need for another link on Care Links called "The Updates".  What is The Updates?  The updates is a one-stop-go-to-link for ALL pending and implemented policy, procedural and other working unit flow changes, form changes, procedural changes or issues. 

 

The consenses from ALL employees across the board is that when changes happen at UCSF, they are not implemented in a streamlined manner.  They are implemented in a hit or miss manner where some people know of the changes and others don't.  When changes are sent by email, people delete emails, forget to read them, or never receive them or say they've never received them.  It's been an ongoing issue with an attitude that frustrates all and an unnecessary feeling of helplessness on all fronts that is needless. 

 

The link should be organized by department and unit.  It should be a blog format for any staff that has a valid employee ID # to be able to post updates on it pertaining to their topic of knowledge on the subject.  Department managers should have a special access to be able to delete any posts from their unit if they feel the posts contain inaccurate information or are inappropriate. 

 

Having this on a dedicated link makes it easy to find...not a long, time-consuming hunt for an old email that may or may not have been since updated.

 

We are a big institution.  With big institutions, the details often get lost or replaced rapidly.  If we are to be an efficient institution, following the money being spent on the Operational Excellence Committee, then this link will be an added tool to help support that mission and lessen the frustration of ALL employees that work at UCSF and its affiliates.

 

Please seriously consider this suggestion and improve upon it.

Commenting is closed.

What's in a Name? - "Preferred Name" Auto Grab

Submitted by CJ Frosch on August 16, 2013 - 5:38pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

Description:

UCSF advertises itself as a LGBT-friendly employer and supports that claim with a diversity center, LGBT-inclusive healthcare benefits, and more. The University even has a "preferred name" column in the electronic HR files, which is great for transgender members who do not have the ability or readiness to change their first legal name, and also serves useful for when there are more than 2 University members with the same name, as well as when University members known by nicknames.

However, there are numerous University systems who map to members' legal first name instead of the preferred name, causing those transgender-identified, double names, and chosen names to get ignored and confused.

This proposal is a simple mapping project to ensure that University members are referred to and listed by their preferred name instead of their legal first name. This will ensure emails, phone calls, and auto-generated system messages are addressing the correct individuals by their correct name, as well as help others reinforce that name and eliminate confusion for finding and communicating with that individual.

Deliverables:

University systems (LMS, BearBuy, ID Badges, etc.) will automatically pull from University members' HR "Preferred Name" listing instead of their legal "First Name" listing. 

Related system administrators may receive an email, a quick reference guide, or a job aid, depending on the need for acclimating systems to this small change (team meetings will determine if there is a need for this).

Impact:

1) More inclusive space for transgender University members who may be unable or unprepared to change their first name legally.

2) Less confusion and lost communications in the case of having more than 2 University members with the same first and last name -- e.g. "Mike's not here? Oops, I must have sent the meeting invite to the wrong Michael Smith again."

3) Less confusion, time, and lost messages for staff members who are known by a nickname instead of their first legal name -- e.g. "I can't find your name in the Outlook address book, DJ, because there are 30 people with your last name," "oh, sorry, I'm the one listed under Jones, Dean."

4) Less discomfort, time, and errors spent on communications with names that University members have difficulty spelling or pronouncing, for those who opt into being referred to by a nickname toward that purpose.

5) More consistency and compatibility between University systems -- e.g. "Sorry, I cannot register you for MyAccess, CJ, because your email address does not sync up with your University Directory listing."

This affects not only those University members with preferred names that are different than their legal first name, but also those who need to communicate with them, as well as all who are affected by those members' productivity and happiness. It is a system that is easy to set in place and has no future maintenance needed to last indefinitely. In short, it is an incredibly low-involvement project with high-impact, sustainable results that have a realistically high probability of success.

Team Members & Roles:

1) Project Coordinator, Subject Matter Expert, and Test User - CJ Frosch

2) HR Administrator/Expert- ?

3) ITS Administrator/Expert- ?

Estimated time would be no more than 1 hour in weekly team meetings and 1.5 hours of implementation time spent weekly for 4-6 weeks, for a total of 10-15 hours.

Commenting is closed.

A user-friendly system for creating long-term, individually timed emails in Qualtrics

Submitted by Omar Contreras on August 28, 2013 - 2:39pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Honorable Mention

Description of Project:

Quality follow-up data is paramount for clinical research, and Qualtrics Research Suite, a robust online survey system available for UCSF, makes it simple to create comprehensive follow-up surveys.  However, Qualtrics’ existing email function does not have the capacity to send automated, individually timed email messages.  Though the option to schedule emails for future delivery exists, it is only available for emailing the entire participant cohort at once, not allowing for the possibility of different participants joining the study at different times (even though rolling enrollment is the norm in clinical studies). Thus, researchers wishing to take advantage of the Qualtrics’ otherwise superior system must devote considerable time and effort of study personnel to manually schedule emails for each individual participant.  Adding the ability to send a series of email follow-ups over the course of months or years individually timed to each study participant would significantly enhance Qualtrics for UCSF, thereby improving the efficiency of clinical research or of any other project for which individually timed emails are desired.

 

Previously, we developed a custom solution for a specific study; this solution integrates the Qualtrics REST API (a native Qualtrics interface system) with Google App Engine (a web framework for developing web applications), creating in a robust, secure emailing system. For this project, we propose to develop a user-friendly way for others to create similar emailing systems.  Specifically, we propose to develop a set of scripts that are driven by an intuitive user interface, as well as a comprehensive, easy-to-follow manual for setting up the email system. Thus, a researcher will be able to set up a system to deliver emails on a desired schedule, with or without reminders, to any set of users represented in Qualtrics by a user panel (Qualtrics native user management system).  The system will include automated reliability checks, user status checks, and an error reporting system.  Importantly, the use of such system will not require the assistance of a programmer or a web developer. 

 

Deliverables:

  • Google App Engine web site (python & HTML files)
  • Qualtrics sample integration survey
  • Manual (initial setup & customization) 

Impact on UCSF’s mission and/or community:

By making an existing research tool – Qualtrics – more powerful and effective, this project will increase the efficiency and impact of clinical research at UCSF.

 

List of team members and their roles:

  1. Omar Contreras, B.A. – Developer.  Mr. Contreras has been working at the UCSF for over 4 years, developing internet interventions for depression and smoking.  He was the main architect of the custom email system that will be the basis of this project.  
  2. Yan Leykin, Ph.D.  – Researcher.  Dr. Leykin is the Qualtrics Division Administrator for Psychiatry, and a researcher interested in using IT for mental health.  He will advise the Developer on researchers’ needs and help draft the Instruction Manual.
  3. Melissa Latham, B.A. – Ms. Latham will develop a comprehensive manual for setting up and customizing the system. 

Comments

Eli Puterman - October 2, 2013 - 3:50pm

This looks like a really helpful project. I run longitudinal studies and am considering using Qualtrics. This type of addition would be very useful to my work. 

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:14pm

Selected comments from Reviewers:

Was tough decision, a front runner proposal, a solution the committee liked. Seemed useful, though limited in audience relative to other entries

Commenting is closed.

Develop Calendar Data API for UCSF Ilios Curriculum Management System

Submitted by Kevin Souza on August 28, 2013 - 4:08pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Awarded

Thank you for all the feedback and interest in our proposal. This version reflects updates as of 10-17-2-13. 

Description:

A student’s life is 24/7 and always on the go. Knowing where you have to be, when, and what you need to do before you get there is a key to success. Health professions students find themselves learning across five major campus sites and a multitude of smaller clinical settings, all the while still responsible for new learning.

The primary tool for managing a learner’s day is their course calendar. For UCSF students and thousands of others around the world the UC San Francisco Ilios Curriculum Management System delivers that calendar via an interactive webpage in their online courses. However there isn’t a flexible and reliable way to access the calendar and course materials on mobile devices or to sync a student’s schedule to their favorite calendaring application such as their iPhone calendar or Google Calendar. As a result students must manage and update their schedules in multiple places and can miss out on important scheduling changes. The ability to access scheduling data is the number one requested feature of students using Ilios. The UCSF implementation of Ilios is online at (https://curriculum.ucsf.edu/).  

We seek to develop an API (application programming interface) for calendar and curricular data in the Ilios curriculum management system in order to facilitate the creation of student and teacher tools for education. Ilios has become a powerful component of the Collaborative Learning Environment at UCSF by capturing, managing and delivering the curriculum of the schools of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry, as well as, faculty development, making it the second most accessed application at UCSF. In addition, it is in use at dozens of school around the US including UCLA, Stanford, Dartmouth, SUNY Downstate, the University of Texas Health Science campus, and most recently outside the US at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Deliverables: (Revised based on feedback)

This project will develop an API for the Ilios calendar data which will:

  1. Allow for the insertion and synchronization of a user’s calendar into their existing mobile device calendar (google, iPhone, etc)
  2. Allow for integration into course management systems such as Moodle.
  3. Provide the ability for others to build mobile tools and desktop applications that utilize calendar and curriculum data.
  4. Allow for the insertion and integration of calendar and curriculum data, such as learning objectives, into enterprise tools such as Drupal and Salesforce.
  5. Create efficiencies in maintaining, updating and extending the open source Ilios codebase.

Impact on UCSF's mission and/or community:

  1. Will enable more flexible, real-time access to learning content for new competency-based health professions education programs.
  2. Development of tool to feed data about the who, what, when, where, why and how of a course, workshops, or learning event to mobile calendars or learning interfaces is an essential need for health professions learners and teachers.
  3.  Thousands of learners from more than 21 schools in the US and abroad will benefit from the development of this API.
  4. Will allow for content to be embedded on sites served by another host or be dynamically posted to user interfaces.
  5. Will be used to ease the work of programming graphical user interface components.

Measures of success and output:

  1. Ilios Calendar API released as part of the open-source code on GitHub
  2. Usage documentation for the API.

Team Members and estimated time committee: (Revised based on interest)

  1. Sascha Cohen, Project Management @ 15%
  2. Rich Trott, Techical Resource Coordinator @ 15%
  3. Elliot Kendall, Programmer @ %70
  4. Kevin H. Souza, Associate Dean, Executive Sponsor @ in-kind support

Comments

Patricia Nason - August 28, 2013 - 4:47pm

Excellent proposal! Students in the School of Medicine request this frequently. Enabling an integrated mobile calendar solution fits well with our increasingly mobile students, who need to rely on the accuracy of their calendar no matter where they are.

Tina Brock - August 28, 2013 - 8:29pm

An integrated mobile calendar will reduce potential errors from juggling multiple calendars and will save student and faculty time.  This project is strongly supported by the School of Pharmacy!

Phaedra Bell - August 28, 2013 - 10:35pm

This would have such a profound impact on the daily life of all our health professions students. It would bring the student experience into alignment with our Schools' very high ratings nationally. In addition it could facilitate new kinds of individualized learning that could have a postive impact on health care and research settings such as those envisioned by the Bridges Curriculum (http://meded.ucsf.edu/bridges).

J. Essex - August 29, 2013 - 8:08am

The ability to sync the curricular calendar with a personal calendar would be hugely beneficial to dental students, particularly on a mobile platform.  This would not only offer convenience, it would also allow for  curricular information to be viewed more frequently, keeping academic responsibilities in the minds of our students anytime they consulted thier calendar whether or not it was for academic reasons.  This innovation would be welcomed warmly by SOD.

Christian Burke - August 30, 2013 - 5:17pm

Great project.  This is greatly needed.  The students and faculty across the schools use the iLios Calendar to manage their courses and this will allow for better curriculum management and innovations.

Susan Masters - September 2, 2013 - 6:26pm

The Ilios curriculum management system has evolved into a core business technology for UCSF medical student education that has greatly enhanced our educational environment and enabled the implementation of flexible learning modalities for our diverse learners. The Ilios calendar is a central to the student and faculty experienc of our on-line curriculum system, and thus upgrading the calendar to integrate more seamlessly with other core educational technology and, especially, with mobile devices used increasingly by our distributed learners and faculty is an urgent priority. 

Jeremy Bancroft Brown - September 2, 2013 - 10:02pm

Ilios can already export calendar data in ICS format, so the simplest short-term real-time calendar solution would be to write a "glue" program that automatically exports Ilios calendar updates as ICS and pipes them to Exchange, Apple, or Google calendars. This approach could make Ilios calendar time-and-place info available on pre-existing mobile calendar apps in real-time (or at least at 15-minute intervals), in the very near future. However, a full API would be more useful in the long term, because it could lead to apps that would make the embedded Ilios calendar learning materials (like PDFs, PPTs, DOCXs, and videos) much more accessible on mobile devices.

Alan Kiang - September 2, 2013 - 11:34pm

As a med student I very strongly urge the funding of this proposal. When I'm on the go, I often find myself with outdated/incorrect information about a class location, or lacking an updated class schedule to help me schedule appointments that will not conflict with school. Having our curriculum calendar sync automatically to our mobile devices, as described in this proposal, would ensure that we do not miss out on important scheduling changes and that we are always up-to-date on our class schedules.

What I would also love to see is improved delivery of information about certain events such as Kanbar sessions. Currently, all possible timeslots for a Kanbar event will show up on our calendars, and each student would have to download an additional excel sheet just to see his or her assigned timeslot. It would make far more sense if the correct timeslot for each student was simply displayed on his or her calendar to begin with.

Max Liu - September 3, 2013 - 7:32am

As a medical student, I think that a calendar app for both Apple and Android devices would be a huge benefit to several reasons.  

First, the current method in which I maintain my calendar requires me to download the calendar from moodle and upload it to a new calendar in my Google calendar.  Every time I update my calendar, I need to generate a new calendar and delete the old one to prevent overlap.  Since room assignments often change with as little as a week's notice, I find myself doing this relatively frequently, and always worrying that I dont have the updated version of my schedule.  

Second, putting my calendar onto Google removes the color coding scheme, which means I have to manually annotate my calendar to display different kinds of classes (labs, small group sessions, lecture).

Finally, I think this might be an opportunity to generate a more personalized calendar concerning preceptorship and Kanbar session schedules.  Right now, we use spreadsheets with our assigned times, which means that I am again manually inputing this into my calendar.  While this is more of an issue with the design of the calendar itself, I think it would be nice to see as an option.

Dylan Alegria - September 3, 2013 - 10:50am

100% Yes!  The calendar system at UCSF continues to improve but this is the lynchpin that has been missing for a long time.  I personally feel that this could be a core technology that helps to blend the clinical years with the preclinical years.  As the student experience could be more unified once all of their resources are available together.

Brittany Harrison - September 3, 2013 - 12:51pm

Indeed, this is a much-needed tool for students. As a medical student, I agree with all of the above comments. I would also like to emphasize that how the current, static calendar affects our productivity and professionalism. If a room number changes, and is not reflected in the student's currently loaded schedule, we go to the wrong room which means we are late for class and disruptive to our classmates. 

 

An added feature that might be helpful, especially for new students, is to link the room location to a map of the building. 

Benjamin Hayes - September 3, 2013 - 5:44pm

Yes, yes, yes!  please do this.  I agree with all the points made above.  I spend so much time trying to access the calendar on my mobile devices and downloading and deleting information in my personal calendar.  The whole process is very frustrating, and makes the system feel so very behind the times.   

Katherine Wong - September 3, 2013 - 7:57pm

Yes! This is vital. As you can see from the comments we've all had to individually create our own solutions for accessing the calendar, which is just silly because we all need the same thing! In the age of smart phones and last minute updates, it's actually kind of shameful we don't already have something like this. 

Arianna Cassidy - September 3, 2013 - 9:33pm

I have wished for something like this countless times over the last year as a medical student at UCSF. I agree with all the previous comments. This would do so much to make our complicated schedules more streamlined. It would increase efficiency and decrease anxiety by so much! Thank you for considering this project.

Erron Titus - September 4, 2013 - 7:21pm

If I am not mistaken, the standard approach for retrieving calendar data is iCal within CalDAV.  I think that most student users are interested in just a single method: a URL that retrieves read-only CalDAV calendar data.  This would allow anyone to add their Ilios calendar to their preferred calendaring system (e.g. Google, iCal), simply by knowing the URL of their Ilios iCal/CalDAV feed.

If there were iOS/Android Ilios apps that people could use to access not only their calendar but the posted content for each session - in lieu of having to go through a browser - that would be an added bonus.  But the ability to retrieve the calendar in iCal format via CalDAV for consumption by a third party calendar system would be an important initial goal, I think.

Nicole Croom - September 7, 2013 - 10:33am

This application would be invaluable for UCSF students! Though I download the static calendar as soon as it is made available, I still find myself having to manually login to irocket on my computer at least once a day to check the type of sessions scheduled for the next day. At least twice last year I would go to the room indicated by the calendar I had downloaded at the beginning of the block and, when no one else had showed up by 7 after the hour, would have to quickly scramble to look up the since updated calendar on my tiny iphone screen to see where I was actually supposed to be. I remember a particularly major mix up last year when half the students went to the wrong building because the calendar had been updated without warning.

Needless to say, having a dynamic calendar readily available on our mobile devices, without the added time it takes to login and wait for everything to load, would increase student efficiency and professionalism.

Conan Macdougall - September 8, 2013 - 6:50am

This would be an improvement not just for students but for faculty as well who need to see where and when they and their learners are supposed to be!

Frances Kleven - September 9, 2013 - 1:32pm

The hallmark of Ilios, in my opininon, is that it makes the curriculum (objectives, outcomes, assessments) transparent to the campus community.  An API would only encourage users (students, faculty, staff) to utilize and interact with the curriculum calendar on a greater basis.

Hien Lu - September 9, 2013 - 11:14pm

Yes please!!! the calendar should be similiar to ASSP calender. It allows the "add to google" calendar option, which is very useful. Whenver the calendar update, the calendar is automatically updated on my phone. It should be a one time set up! Thank you for making changes!

Kristi Jhangiani - September 10, 2013 - 8:36pm

it would be useful for the ilios calendar to have a function to display all the links/files uploaded by date for every class a studen tis enrolled in. right now, the search function on ilios allows me to display one class at a time, but i am interested in a functionality to view all the files and links uploaded to a class by date. many times, if i want to reference back to something, i know the topic i am looking for but not the exact date the lecture occured. Having to scroll through lecture materials day by day is very inefficient, and could be avoided if files could  be displayed by class and by date on one screen instead of the calendar view. I think there should be an option to view the calendar for a class in list format instead of calendar format.

 

Thanks for listening!

 

 

Peter Weber - September 13, 2013 - 2:43pm

Sounds great! Would it be possible to make exclude/hide items that sometime show up on the calendar such as assignmentes/quizzes that currently show up on the illios calendar that can be sometimes confusing?

Could we integrate an interactive fuction for events where students could opt in or RSVP for an event?

Would it be possible to create events that are not associated with a course such as one time special events?

Sean Mcclelland - October 9, 2013 - 5:44pm

We support CLE users, and many of them are accessing their "calendar" through a course page, but face challenges with formatting and sizing - particulalry on tablets and mobile devices. Providing students with another option for accessing their calendar would be very helpful!

Jewel Smally - October 10, 2013 - 10:17am

Great idea, I know students will appreciate this integration especially with their mobile devises.  Can’t wait to hear more.

Dylan Alegria - October 10, 2013 - 10:50am

Most web-based productivity suites that include calendars and email can subscribe to feeds in the .ics format.  This includes the Microsoft Exchange servers used at UCSF.  This might additionally help to encourage students to use these servers more actively since they are HIPPA compliant as opposed to most consumer products that students are familiar with.

Valentina Bettencourt - October 10, 2013 - 12:30pm

The Ilios calendar is the centerpiece of the the students online curricular experience. It is vital that they be able to easily view it in their native calendars and on hand held devices.

Commenting is closed.

UCSF Peer Recognition Program

Submitted by David Law on August 29, 2013 - 8:36am Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

In the results from the recent UCSF Employee Engagement Gallup poll, "Recognition" received the 2nd lowest score of all engagement measures (lowest was having a "Best Friend" at work).  Current recognition programs have not been effective and do little to motivate and encourage employees.  Peer recognition programs give employees the power to reward one another for doing an amazing job.  Peer recognition programs are more effective because employees themselves know who works hard and deserves recognition, since management can’t be everywhere all the time and may not be connected enough to all employees; employees are in the best position to know when people are doing great things.  This has been demonstrated at a month-long pilot by Dr. Arup Roy-Burman at the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in the PICU & PCICU.  Using a peer-based recognition application based off Salesforce.com Chatter, an enterprise social network and collaboration platform, employee recognition increased by 24% and multiple recognitions increased by 91%.

 

 

Deliverables

The primary deliverable will be implementation of a peer recognition program pilot in multiple departments.  There are two specific deliverables for this proposal: a recognition program outline and a recognition program system.

 

The recognition program outline is a non-technical, yet critical piece.  It identifies a generic program that can be used by multiple teams across UCSF (both Campus and Medical Center).  The principles of the program would be as follows:

 

 * Recognitions must come from peers and be meaningful and thoughtful, requiring a brief explanation of why a peer is being recognized

 * There should be a limit on the number of recognitions that can be given within a certain time frame

 * Recognitions must be publicly available and shareable, transparent to peers and managers

 * Additional comments from other peers can be added in support of the original recognition

 * Recognitions should come from teams, cross-teams, cross department, and ideally from across the organization

 * Rewards can and should be given as a result of recognitions

 

The second deliverable will be a selection and implementation of a recognition program system.  This system would include two components -- a tool for managing a program and a platform for employees to give recognitions.  In all likelihood, the basis of the tool will be Chatter, which is available to all faculty and staff at UCSF.  For Recognition Management candidates include the tool developed for the PICU/PCICU pilot (expanded for a wider audience) or an off-the-shelf product from Salesforce.com called work.com.

 

Using the program outline and tools, we will implement pilots within Pediatrics and units within the School of Medicine Dean's Office.

 

Impact

 1. Increase the level of recognition, initially in the participating pilot groups, and eventually across UCSF

 2. Improve morale, quality of work, engagement, customer service

 3. Reinforce and promote positive behavior

 

Team Members, Roles, % time

 1. Dr. Arup Roy-Burman, PICU/PCICU Director – mentor/guide for programs design and implementation (5%)

 2. Lindsay Lightbody - Project Manager for PICU/PCICU expansion (5-10%)

 3. David Law - Project Manager for Pediatrics pilot implementation (5-10%)

 4. Maria Livelo & Laura Chin - Technical Resource for Pediatrics pilot implementation (5-10%)

 5. Stephanie Belger - Project Manager for SOM DO pilot implementation (10-15%)

 6. Ed Martin - Technical Manager for Salesforce platform (10%)

 7. Kristin Chu - Program Design and tool selection (10-15%)

 8. TBD Salesforce Developer - configuration/customization (10-15%)

 

 

Comments

Edwin Martin - September 11, 2013 - 7:27am

Hi David,

 

Stephanie Belger (from the School of Medicine Dean's Office) and I have been discussing implementing a similar program (and also eventually submitting a proposal for the innovation contest).  We were looking at two products in particular, both based on Salesforce.com Chatter.

 

The first is a peer based recognition program piloted by Dr. Arup Roy-Burman, Director of the Pediatric ICU and Transport/Transfer Center at the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.  The recognition is part of an overall gamification program that he's pioneering to improve teamwork, behaviors, and patient care.  I have been helping Arup with his overall gamification efforts, and he's got some very positive results from the pilots he's run thus far.

 

The second is a product called work.com, which is a performance management product that includes peer recognition.  The recognition part is similar to what you've described.  Kristin Chu and I have been working with the Salesforce Foundation to pilot a program within our team.

 

We'd love to work with you on this, or at the very least, share with you what we've learned so far.

 

--Ed

 

Deputy Director, UCSF School of Medicine, Dean’s Office ISU | 415.476.5400 | martine@medsch.ucsf.edu

David Law - September 12, 2013 - 1:48pm

Hi Ed,

I would love to have you and Dr. Roy-Burman be part of the team.  We want this Bear Hug not just campuswide but UC-wide recognization to our employees.  I think it is a win-win to both staff and administrator, cross campuses and cross schools.  Hopefully we can create a more harmonic working environment for everyone.

 

David.

Arup Roy-Burman - September 11, 2013 - 6:37pm

Hi David, Laura, and Maria,

As Ed Martin mentioned, we have piloted a Recognition app within Salesforce.com Chatter, with a group of 124 nurses in the PICU and PCICU.  The application includes and weekly and all time leaderboard-- and adoption of the app was additionally powered by a gamification engine (LevelEleven).  We surveyed our nurses on the importance of peer recognition prior to the pilot-- they highly valued both giving and receiving.  However, when queried as to frequency of both giving and receiving, the numbers were quite low.  With this app, we had a marked increase in peer-recognitions (with a user group for the app limited to these PICU/PCICU nurses and a few in immediate management).  Recognitions flowed to the Chatter pages of both the sender and recipient, and were displayed on the app itself, too.  Residents and other non-ICU nurses who saw the app often requested access, so as to recognize other peers/colleagues.  I agree with you strongly that peer-recognition is very important, and is a key component to employee engagement.  Importantly, I would also like to add, that through development of a process/app which allows involvement of ALL staff, but retains work-unit based leaderboards/posting-boards, we can additionally promote inter-disciplinary/inter-professional recognition, which would only further accelerate employee engagement across the institution.  Would love to partner with you here!

 

Arup Roy-Burman, MD

Medical Director, PICU

Director of Transport, Access, and Outreach

UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital

Stephanie Belger - September 20, 2013 - 11:15am

All:

Thrilled that this idea has so much enthusiasm! 

I'd like to add to the conversation another software platform that we are reviewing called BI Worldwide.  BI Worldwide is the platform that the Medical Center uses for it's THANKS program, and we are considering deploying to the SOM.  If we utilize BI, we could link the recognitions generated through BI to Salesforce Chatter (which appears to be the platform of UCSF's future). One of the benefits of BI is that they could run monthly prize drawings and prize distributions.

Stephanie Belger

Manager, Special Events and Projects

SOM Dean's Office

Sally Adams - October 17, 2013 - 10:43am

Hi David and Team,

 

This proposal sounds terrific- and meets a great need in our UCSF and UC System.  Best of luck with it and thank you for promoting this important concept of team building and support!!

Deborah Carlton - October 18, 2013 - 9:50am

Great idea to promote teamwork!  Thanks for all your hard work in making this available!!

 

 

Rich Fallon - October 18, 2013 - 12:04pm

I think this is an excellent idea.  This provides a means for us to recognize the hard work of personnel throughout the system.  Previously, either e-mails thanking the people or department specific programs were the only way to get recognition out to people.  This looks to be a great way to achieve this.

Freya Magnusson - October 21, 2013 - 3:36pm
In my opinion, the development team that is responsible for developing the UCSF Chatter link located under the APEX section of the default homepage of UCare Links is a worthy recipient of the IT Innovation Award for 2013.  Why may you ask?  I will illustrate the vast and broader implications for why it deserves consideration below:
  1. Streamlines, consolidates, replaces, and improves upon the existing Recognition link currently located under the Thanks link on Ucare homepage.  Allows for complete, full-spectrum employee inclusion from all levels - janitor to doctor or executive to be able to be recognized for their contributions by any member of staff regardless of rank.  In essence, this changes the lateral recognition system to a circular recognition system similar to the concept of the Knights of the Round Table in which all employees are recognized as valued participants in our hospital organization with equal potential for recognition.  This is not only an excellent business model for inclusion and engagement, it is also a very American value reflecting democracy instead of aristocracy.  The implications of that radical change in both medical and nursing culture are vast and incredibly progressive.
  2. Allows for a 24/7 virtual staff meeting experience in which the platform is business-oriented/clinically-oriented and provides a common meeting space for any staff to post updates on everything from policy updates, clinical procedure changes, and everything in between to truly optimize the Excellence value of UCSF`s PRIDE mission.  It provides a go-to place for departmental updates while at the same time, maintaining privacy.  It is designed as a combination of Facebook and Twitter merger in format.  It has long been EVERY department`s frustration about not being able to keep updated with all of the myriad of changes that impact the hospital on a weekly basis.  Chatter solves that problem if it is used wisely.  In essence it transforms the busy, chaotic work flow into a more streamlined, organized, professional work flow improving communication while lessening frustration.
  3. It deserves the award mainly for it`s simplicity in concept and design (the one link concept) that has immense implications as to how it will be used as a catalyst for refining and transforming both UCSF Benioff, UCSF Medical Center, and UCSF Campus business operations as well as business/medical/nursing/general staff cultures on all levels.  To have something so simple yet so far reaching in its potential for positive change is worthy of strong consideration for this award.  It sets a wonderful precedent for future awards based on the value of simplicity with far reaching positive outcomes on all levels.

 

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:15pm

Selected comments from Reviewers:

Would like to see how this tied in (or not) to similar to other efforts at UCSF (Medical Center THANKS, School of Medicine Great People, etc.); try to leverage/integrate with what we have; too early, requires institutional assessment/decision

Commenting is closed.

CoPathFinder: Enabling innovative translational research via the creation of a searchable pathology database.

Submitted by Benjamin Buelow on October 2, 2013 - 2:39pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

Description: Hypothesis-driven science in translational/clinical research is heavily dependent on large searchable electronic databases of clinical information.  UCSF is among the pre-eminent centers for both basic and translational research in the health sciences in part because of its foresight in implementing and maintaining such databases.   Notably, the CoPath database maintained by the department of pathology is critical to many multidisciplinary -and multi-center- translational research efforts involving the departments of pathology, surgery, radiology, transplant medicine, neurology, hematology/oncology, and many others.  At this time, however, no API exists for end-users such as faculty, staff, or residents involved in research projects to search the CoPath database themselves: rather, all searches must be performed by an IT staff member and yields only the most rudimentary information (ie, surgical case numbers only).  This approach is needlessly tedious for both IT and clinical investigators and impedes all research efforts involving the department of anatomic pathology.  We therefore propose the creation of an API accessible to suitably trained end-users for searching the CoPath database in order to harness the tremendous potential of such an interface to spur innovative clinical research.

 

Deliverables:

1. Database of CoPath data separately housed from the native CoPath database by the department of anatomic pathology.

2. User-friendly API for use by clinical investigators to search the database    .

3. Secure data storage of all search data.

4. Mechanism for tracking performed searches by pathology IT.

5. Secure user login requiring registration and training by pathology IT.

6. Training materials (in the form of a pdf document and an audio-visual powerpoint slide show   accessible online) to reiterate patient safety and HIPAA compliance.

 

Impact on UCSF’s mission and/or community:

UCSF’s mission: UCSF advances health worldwide through innovative health sciences education, discovery and patient care.

1. Completion of this project will promote innovative translational/clinical discovery by unlocking clinical data for investigators and encouraging early hypothesis-driven inquiries to spur new research directions.

2. By enabling investigative inquiry among properly trained UCSF residents and medical students, this project will also promote self-directed education/training in translational/clinical research.

3. The collaborative nature of nearly all modern translational/clinical research studies means that the impact of this project extends to all collaborators of the UCSF department of anatomic pathology, including nearly all UCSF medical center/research departments, pathology and other departments at dozens of partner universities, and industry collaborators.

4. CoPath databases are in use at hospitals throughout the U.S. and the world: distribution of this API to other CoPath users will thus promote innovative research worldwide.

 

Team Members:

- Ben Buelow, MD, PhD

    -Vision/Design

    -Subject matter expert (pathology resident, clinical investigator)

    -End-user

- Dianna Ng, MD:

    -Subject matter expert (pathology resident, clinical investigator)

    -End-user

- Gavin Law:

    -Programmer

- Sebastian Geiger (non-UCSF):

    -Programmer

 

Advisory Panel:

Enrique Terrazas, Residency director, Department of Lab Medicine

Angela See, Director of Clinical Operations, Department of Pathology

Vicky Kirby-Martin, Privacy Office

Tim Hoffman, IT, Medical Center Security

Sunny Bang, IT, Database management

Taylor Sittler: Programming consultant

Comments

Linda Ferrell - October 8, 2013 - 4:22pm

I think this project would benefit a very broad spectrum of those UCSF faculty outside of the pathology department.  This would also add considerably to our long-standing efforts in "tissue-banking" within the Cancer Center, as it would now provide a much easier way to access potential tissues from the archives.   

Timothy Hoffman - October 10, 2013 - 8:38am

Consider scoping the existing database for the potential to add views directly into the operational data to keep data in one location and authoritative, backed-up, and accessible.

Rationale:

Creating a duplicate of the authoritative data by separating out a "Database of CoPath data separately housed from the native CoPath database by the department of anatomic pathology" has the potential for adverse indications such as:

   1. Requiring updates at pre-determined times (which could be a bulk copy but cause a strain to operational database) to refresh the data and keep it consistent and relevant.

   2. Potentially causes confusion for the IT staff regarding which Database is to be supported in the event of trouble.

   3. While Views are typically lightweight - the creation of a copy of the data is likely to be more than a simple bulk copy operation - and could lead to issues with the existing operational database.
  

As a separate note: consider making the training an audio visual presentation, of short duration, to cover the specifics - such that it is readily available to the community and easy to consume.

 

Best Regards,

 

Tim

Benjamin Buelow - October 10, 2013 - 11:02am

Tim-

 

As before, great, helpful comments.  The issues you bring up were discussed extensively with the programmers on our team and Angela See (Chief of Clinical Operations for pathology); the general consensus from day 1 by pathology IT has been that making a copy of the database, with regular/periodic updates, is preferable to interrogating the native database because of concerns regarding detrimental effects of searches on the day to day clinical use of the native database.  Since our priority is -and will always remain- fulfilling our clinical responsibilities to the best of our abilities, we cannot afford to generate this kind of interference for research purposes.

That being said, given your experience with these sorts of issues I will revisit the issue with Gavin and Sebastian and see how they weight the costs/benefits of each approach.


Regarding your comment on training materials: I completely agree that an A-V presentation, accessible on the Department website, will be the ideal training medium.

 

Thanks,

Ben Buelow

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:17pm

Selected comments from Reviewers:

More relevant to researchers, too narrow focus/benefit

Commenting is closed.

Enabling Citrix application for Ipads

Submitted by Carla Kuon on October 4, 2013 - 7:46pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

 

a. Description: Currently, UCSF has enabled Ipad users to access patient data through a portal that is difficult to navigate.  This program is called Apex Canton.

However, Citrix is the prefered portal to navigate and record patient information by all healthcare professionals.  It has been already developed as the main gateway by some departments in UCSF.  It is made available to the nursing department, but not many physicians, whom most need access to patient data. 

This project aims to standardize the Citrix portal so that it is uniformly available to all attending physicians in all departments in a HIPAA- compliant manner.   

 

b. Deliverables:  The Citrix application is free and available for download in the Apple App store.

 

c. Impact on UCSF's mission:  it would upgrade the availability to health information technology to a superior format and enhance patient care.  Having a functional Ipad can facilitate rounds and communication between physicians in all fields.

d. List of team members:  I would like to request assistance from team members whom have expertise in this area.  Most desirable would be those whom have already worked with Citrix applications in other departments.

 

e. each team member would devote a minimum of 10 hours a month.  This is an initial estimate.

Commenting is closed.

the Paper Link for PubMed

Submitted by Liang Cai on October 7, 2013 - 1:16pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

This is a browser extension, a web app, also a mobile app!

-- built based on eUtils and related APIs of various web sites; Fast, Light & Mobile Friendly

 

#### Targeted User ####

The project targets to anyone frequently uses PubMed. It presents all the information to the users in one place, in real time, to help the users to save their valuable time.

 

#### Aims ####

* Direct access the PDF link of the related articles, on PubMed pages and any webpage with DOI/PMID/PMCID

* Integrate information for easy access and sharing

    ** When browsing on PubMed, display the impact factor, F1000 link, citation statistics, and any related information next to the article
    ** When browsing on PubMed, a button will be placed next to the article for copy and paste the article summary between applications
    ** When browsing on PubMed, provide links to email the PDF files or save the select articles to the Cloud services, including sharing to social networks if the user wants to

* Rich search experience when access from any mobile device, including smartphones and tablets, with single click to the PDF files, related articles, author publication statistics, etc.

* Alert service to notify users when new entry in PubMed has keyword matched their pre-entered list (alert will be delivered in real time; via email, Twitter direct message, Facebook wall post, etc.)

 

#### Current Progress ####

* Backends running on Google AppEngine and Amzon EC2, with >2,800,000 articles cached for quick response

* Browser extensions written by Javascript, HTML and CSS; open sourced on github

    ** Test version for Chrome, >6000 active users
    ** Test version for Firefox, >500 active users
    ** Test version for Safari, no statistics

* Testing the web app and the mobile app, please visit http://www.thepaperlink.com

* Testing the Facebook App, please visit https://apps.facebook.com/thepaperlink/

 

#### To-do List ####

* Decrease the server latency, aiming for 100 milliseconds response time

* Improve the user interface of the web app, using Twitter Bootstrap

* Integrate support for Google Drive, and other widely adopted cloud storage services (currently when the user click “save it”, the file can be saved to Dropbox, but not to Google Drive, etc)

* Improve keyword based text matching and alert service, including customizable alert frequency, directly store keywords for alert if the user chose to, parallel processing capability on large user population

* Build a smarter alert service using text mining and machine learning; a prototype using Google Prediction API has been tested and proven to be promising - we will modify it to decrease the cost on large user population

* Improve the integration between Google Scholar and PubMed, such as sorting by citation count, sorting by journal impact, etc.

* Improve the integration with http://www.pubmeder.com to allow full text search in a user’s own article collection

* Add support to display the Paper Link information bar into other webpages, such as F1000 comments, Cochrane summaries, etc

* If time permits, build a native iOS app to decrease the network traffic required to use the mobile app

 

#### Team Member ####

* Developer: liang.cai@ucsf
* Designer: hao.wu@ucsf
* Tester: xiao.peng@ucsf, and anyone interested

 

#### Questions Answered ####

* Why someone would be interested in using the Paper Link over PubGet?

    ** PubGet wants the users to browse the articles in their website, as a mean for revenue. The Paper Link provides many ways to access the information, without the need to change the existing reading habits.
    ** PubGet does have a mobile app, but it has much less function than the Paper Link.
    ** The Paper Link has better algorithm to extract the PDF links, which is the core of both services.
    ** The Paper Link has better integration with the social networks. Sharing the knowledge openly!
    ** There is no way to email the PDF file to yourself in PubGet.
    ** PubGet requires an institutional affiliation to check the PDF link, and requires visiting the site from a specific IP range to see the PDF file. The Paper Link does not need that. The Paper Link: displays the open access link to anyone from anywhere, allows the using of EZProxy, gives the PDF link to the user directly.
    ** The browser extension and addon of the Paper Link are open sourced. API of the Paper Link is free for personal use.
    ** The Paper Link was inspired by PubGet. It is built on the believe of Free, Open and Sharing.

* My NCBI has email alert service, why is the Paper Link trying to “reinvent the wheel”?

    ** My NCBI’s service is not in real time - an article might take days, even weeks to get to inbox
    ** My NCBI’s service is based on keyword matching, not by artificial intelligence
    ** My NCBI’s service only delivers the alert via email

Comments

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:18pm

Selected comments from Reviewers:

Desired inclusion of clear, value statement in proposal; need more info about how this is different from existing solutions

Liang Cai - October 29, 2013 - 4:04pm

Integrating online resources into one unified platform and delivered the information to the scientists in the ways they prefer.

 

Although there are solutions provide their own web interfaces to integrated information, the paper link is the only solution currently available to integrate well with http://pubmed.org . Save user's time without changing user's habbit.

Commenting is closed.

UCSF Maps: A new mobile website and web service

Submitted by John Kealy on October 8, 2013 - 8:49pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Honorable Mention

Description:

To create a mobile friendly website that has data for all UCSF buildings, by campus, and with all the peculiar names by which the buildings are known.  For example, a building can be known as “MCB”, “1855 Folsom”, or “Mission Center Building”. The map website will allow one to generate useful directions to a building from anywhere. This website will also allow other UCSF applications to use a simple application programming interface (API) to access geographic data.

Deliverable:

A mobile friendly website with a standard API webservice (most likely JSON), that will allow both use as a website and as a repository of UCSF specific geographic information. This will build on the work now being used on www.ucsf.edu as "UCSF: Committed to the City"  http://www.ucsf.edu/news/community.

In this phase, all UCSF buildings and their common aliases will be added to a web based geographic information system (GIS) using Leaflet to display. The data will also be available for other UCSF applications to consume via some common API.

Impact:

Since UCSF has many campuses, it can often be difficult to know exactly how to find someone at UCSF. A location can have many common names. Having a mobile web interface to the map would help faculty, patients, students and staff to better navigate UCSF. It could eventually by integrated to both the UCSF Directory and shuttle application to provide real time directions from one’s current location to an office or appointment on campus.

Imagine looking up a colleague via the UCSF directory and then having your phone give you directions to their location. It could even be integrated with the UCSF shuttle schedule to tell you where to catch the next UCSF shuttle to the colleague’s location.

This should save time and the frustration of getting lost moving between our locations dispersed over much of San Francisco

Team Members:

John Kealy- Project Manager and Lead Programmer
Richard Baker- Programmer - Drupal and GIS specialist
Richard Trott – Programmer – Mobile and API specialist

Estimated Time Devoted by Each Team Member:

John Kealy – 20 hours
Richard Baker – 20 Hours
Richard Trott – 20 hours

Comments

Jason Jaynes - October 15, 2013 - 10:34am

I would find this extremely useful. Even after 13 years at the university, I get a little turned around about where a meeting room is on different campuses, and would love a mobile-friendly application to help navigate. I really like that it will be integrated back into the shuttle schedule, making a one-stop for all my cross-campus needs.

Vickie Lewis - October 16, 2013 - 11:03am

This is a great idea!  I would use it and so would the Department faculty, staff, residents and students.

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:19pm

Selected comments from Reviewers:

Tough decision, was a front runner proposal; would be good to look at Wayfinding solution institutionally, potential to extend that offering

Commenting is closed.

Application Access Management

Submitted by Rebecca Nguyen on October 9, 2013 - 1:47pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Awarded

Project Desription:

For UCSF there are a significant number of enterprise web applications in use; currently, 84 are listed on the MyAccess site. For many of these applications, access administrators must manually assign access to individuals. Currently, there is no automated way to request access for an application.  The objective of this project is to create a uniform and centralized process for members of the UCSF community to request and grant access to many of the systems across the enterprise.

Deliverables:

  • Create a request web application with a matrix of applications to enable an application request function
  • Modify the MyAccess web application with a link to the request web application
  • Modify the EDS to store what applications the user has access to
  • Provide Access administrator or Application Security administrator a way to update EDS with access changes.
  • Email notification for the requester, approver, granter
  • Create reporting from EDS.

Impact on UCSF's mission and/or community:

UCSF can move to a more uniform and centralized process to request and grant access to applications across the university.  For individuals with access to the existing MyAccess web site, they will be able to submit a request for access to an application listed in the proposed new web application, if that application owner has worked to have it setup. A process will be defined for the setup, approval, and provisioning of access that will result in the following benefits:

  • A single place for 28,000+ users to not just to login into web applications but to also request access.
  • A defined process that ensures a simpler access provisioning process, leading to faster turnaround times and more opportunities for automation.
  • Better reporting and auditing of users and access to UCSF applications.
  • A more efficient service model for groups supporting the UCSF community (ie. Service Desk, IT field service groups, administrative offices, etc.)
  • Moderate to significant cost savings once all the phases are implemented derived from operational efficiencies and better security management.

Team members, roles, %:

Rebecca Nguyen

Project Coordinator

10-15%

Kevin Dale

Systems Analyst

10-15%

Freddie Tai

Developer - Application

20-30%

Mukesh Yadav

Developer – EDS

20-30%

Mimi Sosa

SME, UAT

10-15%

Orlando Leon

SME, UAT

10-15%

Comments

David Law - October 9, 2013 - 2:54pm

This is great.  I love to see this in action.  I have nightmare being an access administatror to manage the entire department with all financial, personnel accesses and more.  Though most of the requests are online, there is no single entry.  Especially I am the only access admin for the department, it makes my job even more challenging.

Good luck.

John Ellis - October 16, 2013 - 8:29am

This is a much needed application to improve ease off access across UCSF, promoting an efficient and effective set up process for all users and adding controls to the process in allowing for monitoring of user access. This will take a lot of the mystery out of “where is my request” and “who does and doesn’t” have access

Richard Blair - October 16, 2013 - 8:52am

Another benefit to managers managing larger groups, is to have the ability to make sure that staff access is applicable to their roles as well as provide flexibility in mirroring access for new hires based on function. This should also assist with the on boarding and off boarding of temporary employees for both granting and terminating access. This would be very helpful for all. Good luck as you move forward. 

Peter Armour - October 17, 2013 - 9:16am

 

I am happy to hear about this; it’s long overdue.  Consolidating system application and auditing processes under one site is a great idea and would go a long way to saving access administrator time and reducing stress.  As campus systems continue to evolve and proliferate,  it makes sense to adopt a single storefront where all essential transactions and reports can occur. Let’s find a way to make this happen. 

Ka Man Leung - October 17, 2013 - 5:00pm

Yes, I think a centralized access request system would be great. 

 

Currently I have to go through quite a few places – Weblinks, PeopleSoft (BearBuy, RAS & Journals), ERS, PAN reviewer, Advance, PI portfolio and Data Recharge each need a separate form that requires manual information entry (name, EID, email, phone, for me and the user).  If the user is able to initiate the request (and I assume the user information would be pre populated since they click through MyAccess), it would save me a lot of time.

 

The only thing I want to mention is that from the list of deliverables it wasn’t clear whether Access Administrators would have the ability to view current user access.  I would think some kind of a lookup tool for Access Administrator would be important.

 

Currently Access Administrators do not have a way to look up existing user access (except Weblinks and BearBuy).  I would have to do a search in my emails or use a recent audit report (not all systems are audited) to try to guess what the user had or check with the security administrator.  Sometimes the changes I am making would affect other roles (like journal approver and journal preparer are related roles; if I remove a journal approver, I would need to figure out the list of preparers that I need to move) and sometimes the DA would like to me copy access to a replacement user.  Having the ability to look up existing user access would avoid confusion and save time going back and forth with the security administrator/DA.

 

Courtney Anderson - October 22, 2013 - 4:35pm

(submitted on behalf of MQ) I think this would be great. Intuitively users go to  MyAccess to find an application. It’s there were they should request access. However the system needs to me more than a “request” system. For example if someone is requesting to be an approver for BearBuy, but if this request conflicts with another user’s role in the dept. then the system needs to alert the requester that action cannot be taken for the following reasons. And there needs to be easy documentation for users to be able to read to select the correct permissions. The system needs to be able to check if prerequisites are met such as training. I think it’s important the system has intelligent programming and workflow otherwise it’s just another request system with a new location.

Commenting is closed.

UCSF-led UC collaborative for patient education: “Women-to-women series”: Women’s Health for Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Submitted by Liz Crabtree-Hartman on October 9, 2013 - 4:10pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

UCSF-led UC collaborative for patient education

"Women-to-women series": Women’s Health for Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

 

Needs Assessment: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affects women in a 3:1 ratio compared to men.  MS is often diagnosed during child-bearing years, and therefore commonly generates questions and concerns regarding family planning, fertility, pregnancy, and breast feeding.   MS is a chronic condition and can also affect women through menopause.  Many patients feel inadequately counseled regarding these topics.  Creation of on-line access to a live format with a panel of experts can potentially reach thousands of patients, delivering patient education and thereby improving quality of life.

Description: This women-to-women series will provide a set time for patients with multiple sclerosis and expert physicians to meet virtually on a specific topic and engage in Q&A in real-time from anywhere, mimicking a patient support group, without geographical constraints.

Dr. Elizabeth Crabtree-Hartman from UCSF has formed the panel with Dr. Barbara Geisser from UCLA and Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom from UCSD.

Zoom technology will allow for participants to join the conversation in real-time from any device (desktop, laptop, mobile), through online video conferencing or by dialing in. Hosts can augment their presentations with slides or other materials via screen sharing. The sessions can be recorded and added to a library of patient education sessions available on a dedicated website for later viewing.  

Promotion for the program will be done at the MS Centers at each location, and at the local chapters of the National MS Society.  This program can potentially reach over 10,000 patients, and can serve as a template for UCSF-led UC collaborations to deliver patient education to patients with chronic illnesses.

 

Deliverables: live online education platform; enduring material- library of recorded sessions

Milestones:  Platform identified/panel formed; content development; patient outreach; Data design-RedCap, Implementation, Data collection, interpretation

 

Impact on UCSF’s mission and/or community:  This project will serve as a pilot for UCSF-led UC collaborations for patient education.  By utilizing innovative technology and existing relationships with experts, this project uniquely advances patient care beyond the clinic walls.  It directly impacts our mission for innovative health sciences education and patient care worldwide.

 

List of team members and their roles:

Elizabeth Crabtree-Hartman, MD- project director: Dr. Crabtree-Hartman is an Associate Professor in Clinical Neurology and is the Director of Patient Education and Support at the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center.  Dr. Crabtree-Hartman is a graduate from the Teaching Scholars Program at UCSF and has translated the concepts in medical education and curricular design to patient education platforms.  She has created, funded, and oversees all of the patient education platforms at the MS Center: a monthly live support group, an on-line interactive new diagnosis orientation, a community building lecture series with Stanford, and an audio podcast.

 

Raphaelle Loren has been leading innovative products to support patient education and communication, including the award-winning MS Bioscreen at UCSF Neurology. Raphaelle Loren will support the platform implementation, and manage patient promotion efforts. 

Estimated time devoted:

Dr. Crabtree-Hartman: content development 15 hours; conferencing with panel members 5 hours; technology implementation 10 hours; materials for NMSS and MS Centers 10 hours; data design 5 hours; data collation/assessment 15 hours= 60 hours.

Raphaelle Loren: Zoom implementation and training of panel- 5 hours, data design 5 hours; data collation/assessment 15 hours- 25 hours.

Comments

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:29pm

Selected feedback from Reviewers:

Unclear whether primarily a social or collaborative focus; since this will be institutional need, it should be considered  as part of a larger, comprehensive effort in the future; committee recommends a go slow approach to this effort.

Commenting is closed.

Mobile App to Extend our Clinical Care: BabyHeartTrak Mobile App

Submitted by Alesandro Larrazabal on October 9, 2013 - 10:32pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

Description of Project

We envision a smartphone app that facilitates collection of basic health data from congenital heart patients, allowing accurate monitoring and follow up and leading to reduced morbidity and mortality.

Infants with congenital heart conditions suffer from high rates of mortality after they leave the hospital. Phone-based home monitoring programs began 10 years ago and have decreased mortality.

Such programs are a great first step. Through them we have learned that systematic collection and tracking of very basic health data metrics such as weight, oxygen saturation, heart rate and caloric intake over time allows for improved follow up and significantly decreasing mortality in this population.

However, current systems of data collection are tedious, slow, and error prone. For example, Emma Olson, our team member and nurse practitioner in the Pediatric Heart Center collects, stores, and transfers data in a labor intensive and highly manual process. She sometimes must enter the same data manually 4-5 times across multiple IT platforms (Apex, Filemaker, Excel, pen/paper, etc). Just to obtain basic data, she spends significant amounts of time each week in challenging phone conversations, often requiring language translation assistance—thus increasing opportunities for miscommunication and human error.

Our BabyHeartTrak app will be the first step toward a digital, mobile-based systematic data collection and will play a leading role in establishing new mobile-based monitoring techniques for our sickest patients. We envision a simple, readily accessible, smart phone-based app that will enable simple data entry by patients' parents. The app will enable health care providers to monitor for signs of alarm. By allowing the parents to track their baby's status over time, families will be empowered to better understand the health progress of their babies.

As professionals in the UCSF Pediatric Heart Center, we have come together to improve patient care through improved data collection. Nick has experience working with this data and writing electronically secured programs to collect patient data.  Emma is ready to implement this app with her patient population. Finally, Doctors Larrazabal and Brook conceived of the idea to transfer home monitoring to a mobile platform and have prepared the clinical requirements and oversight to make the data collection of clinical importance.

Deliverable

BabyHeartTrak is a mobile app designed to assist parents in simply recording their children’s health data so that it may be easily shared with their health care providers. By using mobile data collection, the ultimate goal is to improve health outcomes for children with complex health conditions.

Our final deliverable is a mobile app that includes four simple screens:

-       Record of baby characteristics (name, DOB, diagnosis, recommended caloric intake)

-       Daily log (date, weight, heart rate, oxygen saturation)

-       Feed log (date, time, and quantity of feeds)

-       Progress report (graphs that track progress and compare against norms)

Our team lead, Dr. Larrazabal, is a native Spanish speaker who will facilitate production of our app in both English and Spanish.

Our work plan includes the following interim steps:

  • As a team we have created the initial app design using software application Balsamiq (see attachment). This is already complete.
  • Our team member Nick Robins, a programmer at UCSF, has built web databases with similar cardiology data and will manage the building the mobile app using our Balsamiq designs. He will also coordinate the building of a computer dashboard for medical professionals to manage and monitor patient data.
  • Nick and Dr. Larrazabal are currently reviewing applications from mobile programmers.
  • Christina LaMontagne (a seasoned product manager from the health IT industry) will lead a user testing process to ensure that the user interface is simple and accessible for users.
  • Emma will also be responsible for the deliverable of a basic training curriculum for our users.  

Impact on UCSF’s mission and community

Mobile devices have become ubiquitous in the US and around the world. Especially in developing countries, mobile devices have become a major channel of communication and data storage. By advancing mobile data collection and analytic techniques at UCSF, we are generating new knowledge and best practices to share across departments within our hospital and at our partner sites worldwide. We aim to contribute to the setting of a new standard of data collection and patient monitoring–starting with our youngest and most fragile patients.

Eventually BabyHeartTrak will contribute to efforts to automatize collection of patient data such that the data feed directly into EMR technology like Apex. With enhanced automatization, nurses and clinicians are free to spend less time collecting data and more time diagnosing, treating, and caring for patients.

Finally, one of the primary benefits of our app is the empowerment of patients to own their health data. We believe that when patients have access to their own data they are better able to learn about and manage their own health. We believe the use of mobile apps creates a more engaged and healthy patient population.

List of team members, roles, and estimated division of responsibility & time

  • Dr. Luis Alesandro Larrazabal: 15 hours
    Pediatric Cardiology Fellow @ UCSF, lead app inventor & designer, team leader
  • Dr. Michael Brook: 3 hours
    Clinical expert and senior pediatric cardiology attending @ UCSF, senior clinical advisor
  • Emma Olson: 20 hours
    Nurse Practitioner @ UCSF Pediatric Heart Center, lead user responsible for implementation and patient/caregiver training on app
  • Nick Robins: 10 hours
    Senior Programmer @ UCSF Pediatric Heart Center, lead developer of current web-based system, responsible for managing development of app
  • Mobile app programmer TBD: 20 hours

We have posted this job and already received 13 applications/bids to build this product. We are confident we can find a great programmer to collaborate on this project.

  • Christina LaMontagne: 5 hours
    Experienced product manager of technology applications, health IT start-up executive, MBA (non-UCSF)

 

Image icon BabyHeartTrak Mobile App Design: ENGLISH
Image icon BabyHeartTrak Mobile App Design: SPANISH

Comments

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:27pm

Selected feedback from Reviewers:

Concern about who would be responsible for looking at the data; considerations/implications of feeding unfiltered data into EHR.

 

Commenting is closed.

Campaign Data Import into Salesforce CRM

Submitted by Nooshin Latour on October 10, 2013 - 8:08am Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

Description of project

As UC San Francisco amplifies its message and mission in ‘leading revolutions in health’, communicators across campus are moving away from ‘spray and pray’ mass email tactics to targeted email marketing campaigns. Communications leaders on campus (University Relations, QB3, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Institute for Nursing Excellence, ITA Entrepreneurship center) have expressed enthusiasm for the adoption of a campus-wide email service provider for better email communication. The ability to import email campaigns into a customer relationship management system (CRM) is the logical next step.

To achieve truly relevant and responsive campaigns we need an ecosystem that allows for targeting emails based on custom criteria and previous email history (email was opened/not opened, etc.). That ecosystem consists of a contact management system as a central repository for an individual’s information and an email delivery system that tracks and reports campaign success.

A growing number of UCSF departments are actively using/or planning to use a Salesforce CRM as contact management system to track and report on details about their constituents.  Using the CRM campaign functionality, an email list can be created based on filtering custom criteria. The list can then be imported into an email delivery system for execution. To close the loop, campaign data can then be used to update the contact record in Salesforce allowing for better targeting for future campaigns – targeting the right communication to the right person and ultimately improving engagement.

CTSI has piloted a program to use Salesforce CRM and MailChimp to create an email delivery & feedback ecosystem. The solution includes a direct feed of completed campaign data back into the CTSI CRM both for campaign success reporting and more targeted communications. CTSI uses a MuleSoft integration platform to pass the data between MailChimp (via downloaded spreadsheet from Mailchimp) and the CRM.

CTSI chose MailChimp as their preferred email provider after an exhaustive analysis of the options taking into account factors that include pricing, reliability, clean UI, etc., however, the deliverable outlined below is not restricted to Mailchimp.

 
Deliverables

  • Email campaigns sent throughout UCSF reach thousands of people each day.  The project would be to expand the CTSI pilot to allow email campaign data integration with any existing and or new Salesforce application.
  • The deliverable for this project would be a generalized MuleSoft-based solution that provides a way for any UCSF Salesforce CRM owner to import campaign data from Mailchimp and/or a formatted spreadsheet. The data will be added to the individual contact record for reporting, analysis and future campaign needs.

    Workflow: Mailchimp data/Email Campaign data -> Formatted Excel csv -> MuleSoft -> Salesforce CRM


Impact on UCSF’s mission and/or community

The community of campus communicators and related staff, who reach hundred of thousands of people through email campaigns, has demanded both an email and content management system (See recent comments: http://bit.ly/17Y0yv1 & Communicators Network group on Chatter).

This solution would improve email campaign targeting, tracking, and reporting, which would result in improved university email communications to appropriate, targeted audiences. Importing email campaign data into the Salesforce CRM also allows users to take advantage of detailed individual data (department, title, etc.) to get a more comprehensive view of the people targeted (i.e., Advanced analytics and reporting from the integration of UCSF Salesforce CRM with an individual’s campaign history. Query: “What was the open rate of email campaign X broken down by the four schools?”)


The team/roles, % Time

CTSI-ISU partnership:

-          Nooshin Latour, Communications Manager, subject matter expert, business user 10-15%

-          Oksana Gologorskaya, PM/BA for CTSI solution 15-20%          

-          Danni Pugeda, Salesforce developer 50%

-          Kristin Chu, Salesforce Program Manager 5%

 

Image icon enews_campaign_open_x_crm_faculty_data.png

Comments

Kevin Eisenmann - October 10, 2013 - 3:08pm

This is a great idea. I would just want to make sure that MailChip is the right choice - for us and Salesforce - if we are rolling out to all UCSF (as opposed to Hubspot or other companies who also rule this space).

Nooshin Latour - October 10, 2013 - 3:25pm

Good points. This solution proposes spreadsheet import to the Salesforce CRM as well (for those who don't use Mailchimp) - since most Email Service Providers allow you to download campaign performance results into excel/csv.

Paula Murphy - October 11, 2013 - 8:49am

I think this is a great idea to build Salesforce integration tools at the campus level since so many of us will need them. Thanks for preparing such a thoughtful proposal.

 

This might not have much to do with the actual merit of the proposal, but thought I would weigh in about the emphasis on "opened" emails. I would argue that just because someone technically opened an email does not mean that they read it. They may have inadvertently opened it by scrolling down their inbox. And if someone did read an email, does that mean they should not get a second email, for example, to remind them of a deadline?

 

I am sure that in some contexts it's important to know who "opened" an email. But I would argue that for most of us, what is even more important is the behavior of the user, that is, not only did they open the email, but did they click on anything? For newsletters, for example, that can tell us a lot about what our audiences are interested in reading.

 

As far as data that would be useful in a Salesforce profile, I think we'd want to capture actions such as: did the person register for an event? What newsletters do they subscribe to? etc.

 

Nooshin Latour - October 14, 2013 - 4:06pm

Completely agree. There really isn't a 100% accurate open rate - like you mentioned, people who read emails in a preview pane (without clicking on the email or downloading images) don't count as opens. I use open rates as a general guide to measure campaign trends/patterns, etc.

We chose a few specific criteria (opens, sent, bounces, unsubscribes) for our current pilot solution to import campaign data into the Salesforce CRM, however, I'd like to emphasize that the generalizable solution for campus would allow spreadsheet import into the CRM - so those fields/data may vary based on importers' desired criteria.

 

Gail Persily - October 11, 2013 - 1:56pm

While I know I am not alone, I am embarassed to divulge the mish-mash of spreadsheets and Outlook contact groups and other inadequate tools and methodologies I use to communicate with customers and constituents. I would love to see this proposal come to fruition and to be something that can be used for both small and large departments. I know next to nothing about the Salesforce CRM, but have been interested in learning more so that I could see how it might be applied to some of our activities in the Library.

 

Thank you for putting together this proposal to address a problem that affects so many of us.

Nooshin Latour - October 14, 2013 - 4:31pm

Thanks! The advantage of the UCSF Salesforce CRM is that it has useful out-of-the-box hr data (titles, department affiliations) that wouldn't come with a completely external system. Good luck exploring what works best for your needs! *This proposal would help those who hope to import campaign history into their contacts' records once they have a Salesforce CRM in place.

Sarah Paris - October 11, 2013 - 2:40pm

This is a long overdue and extremely important effort. With more and more demands on everyone's time, the ability to send out information to targeted groups of faculty and staff has become an imperative. This proposal addresses a big chunk of the problem. It will be important to integrate it with a comprehensive communications and education campaign to guide both senders and receivers away from the "spray and pray" model. Managing opt-outs and capturing opt-ins will need particular attention. But if we all pitch in, this is one nut that I am confident we can crack in the foreseeable future (and perhaps set a model for other institutions who are struggling with the same issue.)

Nooshin Latour - October 14, 2013 - 4:47pm

It sounds like the demand for a streamlined process to track and manage contacts and campaigns is quite high. I like your optimism - we'll get there! Also interesting hearing what constituent behavior, like those you and others are adding to the list (opt-ins/outs, click throughs) are see as most important. Thanks.

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:26pm

Selected feedback from Reviewers:

Potentially another solution in the works with UDAR; need to consider holistically.

Nooshin Latour - October 30, 2013 - 10:38am

Good to know that there's another potential solution in the work at UDAR - we will stay in the loop, can provide feedback based on our own import solution 'lessons learned.' Thanks for the update.

Commenting is closed.

CareWeb Radiology Alert System

Submitted by Vivek Swarnakar on October 10, 2013 - 1:00pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Review Complete

a. Description:

CareWeb is a UCSF IT innovation and the premier project for the Center for Digital Health Innovation that integrates various disparate electronic communications information systems within UCSF. This integrated solution unifies electronic messaging with a social networking/microblogging motif to provide real-time streaming as well as “push” notifications via text-page. The data stream is instantly searchable and accessible by those within the patient care workflow. The solution can be accessed via any client with a browser or via an iphone client.

The CareWeb Radiology Alert System (CARESS), the current project, aims at integrating imaging procedure status data from the Radiology Information System (RIS) into the information stream presented by CareWeb. It will allow users to designate an alert status if and as a radiograph moves from ordering to protocol to scanning to completion to having been “read” preliminarily to being finalized. This integration allows access to real-time status updates on patient imaging procedures, and delivers them to a provider if and as the provider so selects.

b. Deliverables:

A special screen/UI element in CareWeb that displays information from the Radiology feed

* Leverages existing Mule Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) software as middleware for getting this data “into” CareWeb

* Ability to select a stage in a radiology exam’s  life cycle at which a provider can be alerted when that point has been reached.

This element is enabled by server software that extracts radiology imaging study status updates in real-time and posts them to CareWeb via the middleware as noted.

An update to the mobile client that allows providers to see updates to radiograph status on their iPhone.

c. Impact on UCSF's mission:

The immediate impact would be an improvement in workflow for UCSF providers due to a reduction in the need to contact Radiology to check on imaging status and/or constantly refresh the electronic medical record to find out when a study is completed. There would also be a dramatic improvement in patient care if providers could refocus their efforts on a given task in the knowledge that once an update was available, it would be “pushed” to them rather than them having to keep checking up on the status. Additionally this project would demonstrate that the CareWeb system can serve as a platform to facilitate integration of data from other patient care systems on campus, including pathology or labs, which have equally compelling use cases in this space.

d. List of team members:

Edwin Martin - technical architect - his experience will bring the technical team together to ensure CareWeb and the RIS  can communicate.

Raman Khanna – team leader – his experience as the lead for the CareWeb project will be critical towards getting this integration completed in a fashion consumable by providers.

Rodanni Pugeda – provide the technical integration within CareWeb such that RIS updates are displayed and triggers are written for the alert feature.

Donna Cummings – updates to the CareWeb Smart Client UI to allow display of imaging status updates, in a manner that can be scaled in the future to include additional lab information.

James Hawkins  - radiology technologist – develop the server side technology to post imaging study status updates to CareWeb through the Mule ESB to leverage existing integration mechanism already in place for sources such as pager. .

Wyatt Tellis - imaging informaticist and workflow subject matter expert - coordinate the export of exam status information from the radiology department’s  RIS

Vivek Swarnakar – radiology team lead – coordinate the efforts between the radiology and CareWeb teams.

e. Estimated Effort:

It is anticipated that most of the integration work can be completed within 40 hrs using existing infrastructure on CARESS.

The mobile client updates would require 40 hrs additionally.

Non-development team members would be required to spend about 10 hrs each testing the integrated solution.

Comments

CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:25pm

Selected feedback from reviewers:

Immediately relevant to radiology, too narrow focus/benefit.

Commenting is closed.

UCSF Email Addresses Upon Arrival for New Hires

Submitted by Susan Sall on October 10, 2013 - 4:56pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
Proposal Status: 
Honorable Mention
  1. Description of project:

This project is a pilot to automatically issue an ‘ucsf.edu’ email address and mailbox for new employees so that email is ready upon the new hire's arrival, along with a listing in the Global Directory/Campus Locator System (CLS) and Active Directory connectivity.  The goal is to reduce the administrative steps and improve the new hire experience around this critical aspect of employment.

  1. Deliverables: 
    1. Domain login, Email address and CLS listing available by 8am on the employee’s first day, based on either the  new hire status or the affiliate titles specifically associated with pre-hire (NEWEMP, ACADAP, POSTMD).  The format would be first.last@ucsf.edu, with additional numeral added if an address already exists.  This is the same format that students already receive.  (Note: The CLS listing is being provided by the IT service desk as part of an earlier project to support departments and compliance training.)
    2. Notification of the new account would be emailed to the supervisor, who would notify the employee on their first day.  All new hires should have a supervisor indicated on the new hire HR ticket, backup would be the Business Officer role for the department from the Department Role Table.
    3. Communication plan within the pilot department.
  2. Impact on UCSF's mission and/or community:   
    1. This pilot project will eventually allow 2,341 supervisors (minimum) to have new employees be productive upon arrival.  Approximately 3,000 new employees per year would avoid the historic delay or issues experienced due to a manual account request system.  
    2. The initial pilot group is the ITS organization, with the design and scalability to support the UCSF enterprise in the future.
    3. IT, HR, and departmental resources are freed from the email, phone call, and service request back-and-forth communications that are currently required for every account.
    4. Specific needs for no email or a different domain could be accommodated by submitting a request, which is the same effort required under the current system.
    5. Having an 'ucsf.edu' email removes the following current issues:
  • Movement of individuals between departments/units results in additional email addresses, and confusion.
  • Reliance on difficult to support custom software to provide guidance during the manual provisioning of the email account.
  • Adds the following value:
    • A department or other organizational move by an individual does not affect their assigned email address.
    • Much simpler account provisioning logic, leading to faster turnaround times, and more opportunities for automation.
    • Moves to an industry standard of an organization having the same email domain.
    • Uninterrupted delivery of mail to all legacy addresses
    • Consistent use of the ucsf.edu domain will greatly improve the process of integrating with systems that use email as the unique identifier.

  • List of team members, their roles, estimated time devoted

    • Team Member

    Role

    Estimated Time Devoted

    Vincent Ma, Sr. System Administrator

    Active Directory and Exchange Developer

    35%

    Mukesh Yadav, Identity Mgmt Technical Lead. 

    Developer

    35%

    Elliot Kendall, IAM Engineer

    Advisor 

    10%

    Susan Sall, Director, HR Service Center A

    HR Project Coordinator

    10%

    Andres Mattes, Identity Management

    Advisor

    10%

    Mark Day, Deputy Dir of Systems

    Executive Sponsor

    In Kind

    Kevin Dale, Sr Manager, Identity Management

    Executive Sponsor

    In Kind

    Kraig Kluba, Virtual Hosting, Exchange, and Active Directory

    Executive Sponsor

    In Kind

    Jason Lin, Service Now

    Executive Sponsor

    In Kind

    Brian Auerbach, OB/Gyn

    Department Representative

    In Kind

    Comments

    Jane Czech - October 11, 2013 - 11:19am

    This is a critical initiative.  I was involved in a similar initiative years ago at Scripps Health and it was implemented with huge success.  As a department manager, I strongly endorse this proposal.

    Chuck Hajek - October 14, 2013 - 9:09am

    As a Dept manager, I wholeheartedly endorse this project.  Waiting for ones email after arrival is frustrating for the new employee, their supervisor, and anyone that is expected to communicate with the new employee. 

    The Dept name in the domain will need to be addressed but it appears that a Dept has the option to maintain their name in the domain by submitting a request.

    Nancy Knowles - October 14, 2013 - 1:41pm

    This is a great idea, and should extend to our interim staffing services.  We have had trouble getting temporary staff coming in for positions without e-mail addresses.  Even if the lag time is just a few days, this impacts the person's ability to do the job, as we are not able to share e-mail login information, and the doctors need to delegate staff to assist them.  I think this idea is a great one - I look forward to appreciating it soon!

    Pam Hayes - October 14, 2013 - 7:06pm

    I fully support this initiative as this takes UCSF one step closer to giving new employees ‘all’ the tools they need to be fully functional the first day on the job.  This initiative also improves UCSF's image in being organized, prepared and supportive of new faculty and staff. 

    Nabil Ghanem - October 15, 2013 - 9:50am

    I fully support this project.  It will cut down on staff down time and it will make a positive impression of the University's administrative systems on new hires.

    Vickie Lewis - October 16, 2013 - 11:07am

    The concept is great and past-due!!!  Question: How do we then merge the non-ucsf.edu emails once they are available? 

    Susan Sall - October 16, 2013 - 4:41pm

    This project only focuses on a process for new hires going forward and wouldn't affect emails that are currently in place.  Let me know if that didn't fully answer your question. 

    Carey Herman - October 16, 2013 - 12:05pm

    I support this initiative as it will help productivity by allowing employees access to other University systems and will promote a more seamless onboarding experience.

    Nancy Walters - October 16, 2013 - 12:36pm

    This would help new employees become productive on their first day of work and would benefit both the Department and the employee.

    Ann Mcenhill - October 16, 2013 - 12:52pm

    A great idea that will solve that awkward period of waiting when people first start.

    Nicole Persson - October 16, 2013 - 1:00pm

    Critical to maintain efficiency in the new hire process.  So much needs to be communicated via email in those first few days and not having an encrypted email account to begin with is a security issue.

    Jacob Blackshear - October 16, 2013 - 1:13pm

    Yes! This seems like an obvious win for everyone.

    Sandy Devries-Troxel - October 16, 2013 - 1:56pm

    As a lab manager this is critical for our lab employees- full or part time This needs to be linked with getting their EIN on or before their start date so that they can do the mandatory online safety training on their first day

    Melissent Zumwalt - October 16, 2013 - 3:02pm

    This is an idea long overdue.  It will enhance the work experience for new employees, and increase productivity and professionalism for the University. It's quite embarassing to have to tell a new employee they won't have an e-mail account established for a week or more just because "that's how long it takes here."  It's frustrating for new employees who are here and ready to work, but unable to do so without something as simple as an e-mail account.

     

     

    Maria Friciello - October 16, 2013 - 3:12pm

    I would further add that this process should be automated at the HR Service Center level, meaning, once the offer letter is signed, then HR proceeds automatically in requesting an ucsf.edu email address as well as requsting access to the "MyAccess" portal as employees will also have to have access to many systems in order to fully function.

    Igor Mitrovic - October 16, 2013 - 4:30pm

    Absolutely agree with the proposal and the suggestions above!

    Susan Sall - October 16, 2013 - 4:39pm

    This project would do the request automatically, so no department or HR request for an email account would be necessary.  I'll need to verify with the IT team members about the "My Access" piece.  Thanks for your reply!

    Kevin Dale - October 16, 2013 - 7:23pm

    Just want to let you know that a new person can activate his/her MyAccess account by using the email address once they have it. 

    Catherine Garzio - October 16, 2013 - 5:30pm

    As a department manager, I also support this proposal, will significantly help our new staff and faculty to feel more welcome and more engaged with UCSF.  I agree with comments above that it should occur once offer letter is signed. 

    Susan Sall - October 17, 2013 - 9:00am

    I had reached out to others I have worked with, and the following people also provided their support in a separate email:  Keith Yamamoto, Ron Arenson, David Julius, Allan Basbaum, Stephen McLeod, and Jacque Duncan.

    Carol Piunti - October 17, 2013 - 10:12am

    I support this initiative.  It is critical that new employees are able to send and receive emails from a UCSF email the day they begin.   In the Neurology Education Division, we need to deal with sensitive issues on the spot.  This would allow a new employee to begin sending and receiving critical information from day one. 

    Courtney Anderson - October 22, 2013 - 4:36pm

    (submitted on behalf of MQ) That would be great. It’s one of the things we have to chase down. But we also need to let them know we have our standard @pharmacy.ucsf.edu.

    CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:24pm

    Selected feedback from Reviewers:

    This would have to be limited to Campus only (not Medical Center), committee sees this as a larger project.

    Commenting is closed.

    WAIT-INFO: A system to automatically send “current waiting-time” updates to our patients via SMS

    Submitted by Michael Deiner on October 10, 2013 - 4:59pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
    Proposal Status: 
    Review Complete

    I. SUMMARY: Let’s leverage APEX and text messaging technologies to automatically reduce the anxiety and burden on patients and their caregivers currently caused by long waiting room time uncertainty!  

    II. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT:  One of the most common patient complaints in a number of clinic waiting rooms at UCSF are the long and uncertain waiting times to see their doctor. On average, wait times can be a minimum of 30 minutes up to 2 hours without any status updates to the waiting patients, causing high levels of patient frustration and anxiety to the point where patients leave unseen. Rather than discussing health issues with patients, our doctors and staff are faced with triaging anxious and angry patient complaints such as “I was afraid of missing my named being called but if I’d known how long the wait time was going to be I could have (a) used the restroom (b) gone to the cafeteria because I was starving (c) fed my meter but now I have a parking ticket”.   It has been difficult for front desk personnel or doctors to manually track and manually update patients on their wait-time statuses.  As a solution, we propose to develop “WAIT-INFO” a back-end application that utilizes APEX’s care management platform to (optionally) send automated free text message updates to patients with their estimated wait time and queue number. This will greatly reduce wait time uncertainty and provide freedom for patients to travel around.  As an example in ophthalmology, patient statuses in APEX are changed to a green circle after initial tech work-up, indicating they are now in the waiting room ready to be seen by their doctor. Wait time is often longest here. Our proposed WAIT-INFO application will utilize and track data (via color code system) from APEX to monitor patient’s wait time/queue status. Once the green circle is displayed in APEX an initial text message will be sent automatically to the patient. The first text message and subsequent messages are: "Thank you for your patience. There are currently #___ patient’s ahead (intervals >5, 5, 4, 3)".  Once the patient is #3 in the queue- the text will read: "Please return to the clinic immediately". If patients do not return to the clinic in time, they will be skipped but placed next in line.  An SMS “your patience is greatly appreciated” will then still be sent every 15 minutes, until the healthcare provider opens the chart ending all SMS alerts.  A manual override to text a patient to return to clinic can also be sent by the front desk.   

    III. DELIVERABLES:  (a) Proof of value (completed!): In an already-completed pilot simulation using manually sent free SMS via txt.att.net,  “mock patients” (our team members) were followed through a real clinic schedule and responded to manually-sent SMS wait-time alerts. In this WAIT-INFO simulation, the estimated waiting room time was only 13 minutes (vs 46 minutes actual patient wait time in office).  (b)  Proof of concept:  One next step is a WAIT-INFO simulation manually monitoring and text messaging a cohort of waiting clinic patients as with the pilot study above, then surveying patients who did and did not participate in the WAIT-INFO simulation, comparing patient’s waiting-satisfaction, and gauging interest and feedback in an automated WAIT-INFO system.  From anecdotal evidence, we are confident patients will appreciate WAIT-INFO.  (c) WAIT-INFO application beta development: in parallel with step b above, the study team programmer will develop a beta version of the application that will use APEX as an automated means of gauging wait time, queueing patients, and sending text messages. (d) WAIT-INFO pilot testing and refinement: After steps b-c, we will refine in our clinic, extend and customize the application to a clinic in a second department, and then further refine for expansion at UCSF.

    IV. IMPACTS: The proposed SMS WAIT app unites innovation and discovery to improve the patient and clinic staff experience and satisfaction all of which are UCSF’s foundations for quality patient care.  Just in ophthalmology alone, we estimate this would directly impact several thousand patients a month, as well as clinic staff.  Broader potential usage of this system includes wait-time alerts in other UCSF clinic and clinical lab waiting rooms with long uncertain wait times, or families waiting anxiously in surgical or maternity ward suites can be provided with SMS status updates of their loved ones. Front desk personnel could also leverage the system to manually send a text message to call patients to the front desk privately (a privacy improvement over the tradition of calling out a patient’s name in the waiting room).

    V. PROJECT TEAM:   Jane Kuo, OD, FAAO (Team/clinical lead ~25 hours); Michael Deiner, PhD (Project manager ~25hours); Winnie Wat (APEX Analyst/WAIT-INFO developer ~35 hours). 

    Comments

    Leslie Yuan - October 10, 2013 - 6:27pm

    I love this idea. As the caregiver of elderly parents, waiting with them in the waiting room upwards of 2 hours -- there is certainly a ton of anxiety for them as well as me (missing work and wondering if I should call into a meeting or not...) It'd be great for patient satisfaction. Great use of technology. 

    CTSI Web Administrator - October 29, 2013 - 12:21pm

    Selected feedback from Reviewers:

    Innovative concept and well liked by committee members; something we would like to do but would need to do broadly; unclear whether there already exists a data field or systematic way of obtaining and recording patient cell phone numbers

    Commenting is closed.

    E*Value Efficiency Effort for Faculty Advancement Packets

    Submitted by Susan Sall on October 10, 2013 - 5:09pm Last revised by Anonymous on March 1, 2014 - 9:30am.
    Proposal Status: 
    Awarded
    1. Description of project: Develop a new process to save thousands of hours of work each year by automating the process of pulling required faculty evaluation data and delivering to a secure HR drive. Currently, each faculty member or their representative must manually extract this data from E*value.This will allow HR generalists to efficiently upload the required evaluations into Advance to support faculty appointments and advancement.  This is a pilot for the School of Medicine departments, with the future goal to invite other Schools to experience a reduction in their administrative burden as well. 
    2. Deliverables:
      1. Identified and vetted E*Value standardized report that provides the required evaluation data on an annual basis for eligible faculty.  The vetting would include the Committee on Academic Personnel as well as the Vice and Associate Deans.
        1. Using a unique identifier (ie employee id)
        2. Pdf files would be used, 1 per faculty member for all teaching in the School of Medicine that evaluates its program through E*Value. This includes required UME and GME teaching.
      2. Secure location on an HR drive
      3. Communication to affected campus community, disclosure to faculty members
    3. Impact on UCSF's mission and/or community:
      1. At least 3,000 less hours of administrative work per year for faculty, departments, HR, SOM
    • 2012-13 had 2,973 appointment and advancement packets created across all departments at UCSF. In 2011-12, there were 3,054.
    • It takes approximately one hour compile and pull a faculty member’s evaluations for the year.
    • For the approximately 40 Academic HR Generalists, they will have the ability to obtain the information directly from the secure file as required without phone calls, emails, and follow up.
  • UCSF can do a better job meeting the requirements for faculty appointments and advancement.  Evidence of teaching is required, and evaluations form E*Value represent the majority of that evidence.
  • This project will ensure accurate, timely, and complete evaluation data within the advancement packets of all faculty so that the Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP) can trust that all information is included and is consistent.
  • There will be a reduction in the number of individuals handling evaluation documents, which protects the data.
  • List of team members, their roles, estimated time devoted

    • Team Member

    Role

    Estimated Time Devoted

    Luke Hones, HRIS

    Technology Advisor, provide HR IT resources

    5%

    Cynthia Lynch-Leathers, Assistant Vice Provost

    Advance System, Executive Sponsor

    In kind support

    Kevin Souza, Associate Dean Medical Education

    Executive Sponsor

    In kind support

    Bonnie Hellevig, Director, Educational Data

    Technology Advisor, E*Value Programmer

    70%

    MarkLovett, Evaluations Research Analyst

    E*Value Programmer

    10%

    Arianne Teherani, Medical Education Evaluations Unit

    Executive Sponsor

    In kind support

    Allison Chen, Medical Education Evaluations Unit

    Evaluations Specialist

    5%

    Amy Day, Director of GME

    Executive Sponsor

    In kind support

    Susan Sall, HR

    Project Coordinator

    5%

     

    Comments

    Nabil Ghanem - October 15, 2013 - 9:47am

    I wholeheartedly support this project.  It would lead to HR staff time savings as described above.  In addition, it will also help with the efficiency of processing the merit and promotion actions by ensuring that the teaching evaluations are automatically included with the packet avoiding last minute discoveries that this item is missing.  This project will save HR staff time and improve the quality of the advacement packets!

    Melissent Zumwalt - October 16, 2013 - 12:46pm

    Terrific Idea!  This will create a more streamlined process for both Faculty going throughout the advancement process and Staff who administer the process. Information which exists in one system should be leveraged for as many purposes as possible to eliminate redudancy across campus.

    Helen Loeser - October 16, 2013 - 9:58pm

    From the persepctive of a faculty member who teaches across programs, units, departments and learner levels, this would be SO helpful! As embarrasing as it is, I will go on record here to note that currently, no matter how much time I devote to trying to do this, I find it impossible to actually collect and sythesize all available information on my teaching evalutions - let alone advocate for myself with the most thorough/complete data. In the end, lots of time spent without complete results. So most definitely a project that would save time and effort AND improve efficiency and quality!

    Elizabeth Garrity - October 16, 2013 - 2:21pm

    I am in favor - Elizabeth Garrity

    Cynthia Ashe - October 16, 2013 - 2:32pm

    I manage a program that relies on E*Value scores as part of our application process. It would be a tremendous advance for faculty to have access to a single PDF with a year's worth of evaluative scores, and it would have a positive impact beyond the critical needs outlined in the proposal.

    Susan Sall - October 17, 2013 - 8:45am

    Hello- I wanted to clarify that this project is related to how HR would get access to the E*Value data, and wouldn't include any changes for how the faculty would access their data.  The time savings will be that the department or individual faculty doesn't have to pull and compile the data to send to HR for the advancement packet. 

    Cynthia Ashe - October 17, 2013 - 8:57am

    Would it be possible for HR to provide faculty with the pdf summary upon request, or to access it from ADVANCE? It seems that the universal issue is the difficulty of pulling E*Value data; if this project streamlined this, perhaps phase II (operational, not technological) would be to maximize the use of the existing summary.

    Bonnie Hellevig - October 17, 2013 - 2:27pm

    Hi Cynthia, The current project plans to deliver the faculty evaluations to HR. Connecting directly to ADVANCE is a logical next step. I know there is a lot of interest in that, and it's something we will likely investigate in the future. 

    Jane Czech - October 16, 2013 - 2:53pm

    This is a great project to save so much time!

     

    Joan O'Leary - October 16, 2013 - 3:21pm

    I support this innovative proposal because when I worked in HR, we spent a good deal of time trying to gather evals for the faculty for posting in ADVANCE. It was a very cumbersome process.

    Now, as a coordinator, I help to obtain the eval info for HR and agree that it can be done is a much better, more streamlined process.

    The time and effort we save would certainly be put to good use completing other important work.

    Thank you for your very worthwhile, sensible and necessary proposal.

    Joannie O'Leary

    Nicole Persson - October 16, 2013 - 3:55pm

    Something that saves 3000 work hours that span faculty and staff alike should be developed.  That's 3000 hours that could be used in pursuit of more productive endeavors.

    Susan Sheehan - October 16, 2013 - 4:02pm

    I support this project. It would be best if both housestaff evaluations and medical student data could be combined in the report as well as ranking of faculty with in divisions and department.

    Igor Mitrovic - October 16, 2013 - 4:28pm

    I am absolutely in support of the project. As someone who teaches (and is responsible for physiology teaching and, therefore, collection and distribution of the evaluations for all the faculty in my Department) in all professional schools this would be of great help. 

    Shirley Hodges - October 16, 2013 - 5:40pm

    I think this is a great time-savings initiative and enthusiatically support it. We do have some questions though (perhaps all of these are to be addressed in the vetting process?)... 

    Since faculty members typically teach in several courses, is the plan to have a separate evaluation for each course?  If not, then does this mean the data would be somewhat compromised, since differences between ratings in, for instance, didactic and clinical courses, would be averaged?  

    If the evaluations are to be done course by course, how will the information be collected?  Will reference be made to the CV in Advance?  

    We're suggesting that the optimal system would be one where the teaching activity section in the CV in Advance identifies specific courses for which there are E*Value data.  Perhaps the owner of the CV clicks on information available on pull down menus to identify courses that have evaluations for them.  Some courses in which they teach may not be in E*Value; this would help the faculty member identify those courses in which they are teaching but for which there will be no evaluations; corrective action then may be taken, by having the faculty member communicate with the course director. 

    Would the system allow for reviewers to see COURSE evaluations for courses where the faculty member under review is director?

    These questions may be premature but perhaps a little more detail about the project would assist in its approval.

     

     

    Cynthia Ashe - October 17, 2013 - 10:56am

    Shirley brings up insightful questions that demonstrate the tremendous downstream potential for this project. Clearly there is much support for streamlining this cumbersome process. Designing a system that would save 3,000 hours of staff and faculty time is a great place to start.

    Susan Sall - October 17, 2013 - 12:03pm

    Great questions, Shirley. Here's the Q & A's together:

     

    Since faculty members typically teach in several courses, is the plan to have a separate evaluation for each course?  If not, then does this mean the data would be somewhat compromised, since differences between ratings in, for instance, didactic and clinical courses, would be averaged?   The evaluations would be pulled by faculty member employee id number and there would be separate evaluations for each course.  This project would not consolidate ratings or do any calculations.

    If the evaluations are to be done course by course, how will the information be collected?  Will reference be made to the CV in Advance?  See answer above.

    We're suggesting that the optimal system would be one where the teaching activity section in the CV in Advance identifies specific courses for which there are E*Value data.  Perhaps the owner of the CV clicks on information available on pull down menus to identify courses that have evaluations for them.  Some courses in which they teach may not be in E*Value; this would help the faculty member identify those courses in which they are teaching but for which there will be no evaluations; corrective action then may be taken, by having the faculty member communicate with the course director.  This is a great idea for future improvement, but the limited time frame and resources mean we’re only be able to address getting the data available to HR in an automated way.  This could be considered for a future enhancement/extension.

    Would the system allow for reviewers to see COURSE evaluations for courses where the faculty member under review is director?  I may need more clarification on this question, but we will pull all evaluations that are appropriate for someone's advancement packet based on the current procedures/processes.

    Peter Sargent - October 17, 2013 - 3:00pm

    Thank you Susan for the response.  Our last comment is based on the fact that faculty who direct courses should list that activity as a contribution to their teaching.  The quality of their contribution could be assessed by examining the evaluations of the course as a whole, independent of the faculty member's own lectures, etc.  There is evidently no plan to include such course evaluations in the packet, if I understand correctly the process.  

    Karen Hauer - October 16, 2013 - 8:58pm

    Excellent idea. This proposal would save a lot of faculty and staff time, and also standardize the way that data is pulled and presented. Currently, when faculty pull data, there can be a lot of time spent, and still there are questions about whether the data is current and complete.

    Calvin Chou - October 17, 2013 - 5:23am

    No question that this will be helpful: it should improve accuracy in reporting scores and save time and headaches.  It is another question whether E*Value scores demonstrate true teaching ability vs other surrogate markers - but maybe this project will also help clarify that.

    Carrie Chen - October 17, 2013 - 8:25am

    I think this is a terrific idea.  Often faculty are asked to provide the average scores for the course or the department as a point of comparison.  It would be great if there was a way to easily integrate that information into the report as well, or perhaps have available separate reports for the courses and departments that the faculty could pull in addition to their own.

    Bonnie Hellevig - October 17, 2013 - 2:22pm

    Hi Carrie, Your suggestion about incorporating the comparison data is a good one. It is something we can consider for a second phase or expansion. 

    Susan Sall - October 17, 2013 - 8:59am

    I had reached out to others I have worked with, and the following people also provided their support in a separate email:  Keith Yamamoto, Ron Arenson, David Julius, Allan Basbaum, Stephen McLeod, and Jacque Duncan.

    Vickie Lewis - October 17, 2013 - 9:44am

    I am in favor of this important project!

    Sylvia Decourcey - October 17, 2013 - 10:35am

    As someone who works with evaluations and reports, I am in complete support of this.  The process for generating faculty evaluation reports for promotion packets or portfolio updates out of E*Value is not a simple or intuiative, this would free up time for everyone involved from faculty, staff, department academic affairs and especially HR.  Although we have a user guide for faculty in how to do this, faculty constantly contact me about pulling their evaluations since it's not simple or they cannot figure out when or which course they have taught in our complex curriculum.  Currently if the faculty is unclear on the timeframes that they teach in, the report generated could be not accurate.  If this project becomes reality, there would be no confusion for the faculty and their evaluations and the data would be ensured to be accurate, which would be beneficial for everyone.  This has huge time saving potential for all involved in the promotion process for faculty.

    Kathleen Land - October 17, 2013 - 12:34pm

    Absolutely, Sylvia.  As an administrator who also assists faculty in obtaining this data I am in favor of a streamlined and automated system.  It will save a tremendous amount of time and greatly reduce stress and anxiety for everyone involved. 

    Allison Chen - October 17, 2013 - 1:44pm

    I want to express my enthusiasm and support for this project. One of my responsibilities is to support department staff with E*Value use, which includes obtaining faculty evaluation data in E*Value for advancement purposes. Faculty teach in multiple settings and across different departments, and it would be great to be able to obtain faculty performance data in an efficient and accurate manner. Administrative staff and faculty often have to jump through multiple hoops in order to gather all the necessary reports, which are not always centrally available or easily accessible. Having a centralized repository of faculty evaluation data would save a tremendous amount of time for both staff and faculty. It would be helpful to have the evaluation data contextualized by different settings and comparison data.

    Roy Johnston - October 22, 2013 - 12:45pm

    Everything about this sounds good. As a clerkship coordinator I periodically receive urgent requests for faculty evaluations to be used in their promotion packet. Since I only have access to those courses I am involved with, the faculty member or HR are often sent elsewhere to get the remaining evaluations from other courses the faculty member teaches in. Centralizing this data and removing the urgent requests for multiple people sounds like a good thing.

    Brian Alldredge - October 24, 2013 - 12:15pm

    I would love to see this happen! It's a natural bridge between systems that will save faculty and administrative staff time, and potentially improve the completeness of data used in the academic review process.

    Commenting is closed.