Hope Gray, MTS, BCC, a student in the UAB Doctor of Philosophy in Administration-Health Services program – Health Informatics track, has been awarded the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Leadership and Education Award (LEAD) Fund Scholarship. She is one of only two to earn the award.

Established in 2016, the AMIA LEAD Fund is focused on supporting membership diversity, trainee engagement and developing future AMIA leaders.

“I am honored to have been selected as an AMIA LEAD Fund Scholarship Awardee this year,” said Gray who is a Board-Certified Chaplain with training in ethics, empathy and diversity, equity and inclusion. “I presented my PhD work to AMIA members and gained meaningful feedback for which I am thankful.”

“We are grateful to AMIA for seeing the value in developing future Health Informatics leaders with the LEAD fund. Their mission in doing so is very much aligned with the mission of UAB’s Graduate Programs in Health Informatics and further develops our students to lead and innovate in the field,” said Sue Feldman, RN, MEd, Ph.D., director, Graduate Programs in Health Informatics.

Gray has participated in the AMIA Clinical Informatics Conference (CIC) as well as several JAMIA Journal Clubs. In addition, she is a member of many AMIA workgroups including:

• AMIA First Look
• Clinical Information Systems
• Clinical Research Informatics
• COVID-19 Community & Discussion Forum
• Natural Language Processing
• Student Working Group
• Women in AMIA Discussion Forum

The AMIA LEAD Fund promotes the value of informatics in transforming health and healthcare by awarding scholarships and research, highlighting innovation and discovery, recognizing professional achievement, and promoting leadership and advocacy.

Students in the UAB M.S. in Health Administration program helped UAB Hospital surpass its goal of collecting more than 268 bicycles for the annual Salvation Army Toy Drive.

UAB School of Health Professions’ Professor Sue Feldman, Ph.D. and Assistant Professor Mohanoj Thirumalai, Ph.D., along with the Department of Pathology’s Sixto M. Leal Jr., M.D., Ph.D., were awarded the Faculty Innovator of the Year honor during the fifth-annual UAB Innovation Awards.

New research on the impact of COVID-19 suggests that, in the complete absence of stay-at-home orders, the United States could have seen 220 percent higher rates of infection and a 22 percent higher fatality rate than if stay-at-home orders had been implemented nationwide. The study, which included researchers Sangeetha Padalabalanarayanan and Vidya Sagar Hanumanthu as co-first authors, was published today in JAMA Network Open.

The review of COVID-19 positive case rates and state-wide stay-at-home orders suggests that stay-at-home orders helped reduce transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.New research on the impact of COVID-19 suggests that, in the complete absence of stay-at-home orders, the United States could have seen 220 percent higher rates of infection and a 22 percent higher fatality rate than if stay-at-home orders had been implemented nationwide.

The study, from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and published today in JAMA Network Open, analyzed daily state-level positive case rates against the presence or absence of statewide stay-at-home orders, or SAHOs. The team looked at the time period of March 1 to May 4, 2020, as SAHOs began to be implemented.

“During March and April, most states in the United States imposed shutdowns and enacted SAHOs in an effort to control the disease,” said senior author Bisakha Sen, Ph.D., Blue Cross Blue Shield Endowed Chair in Health Economics, Department of Health Care Organization and Policy in the School of Public Health. “However, mixed messages from political authorities on the usefulness of SAHOs, popular pressure and concerns about the economic fallout led some states to lift the restrictions before public health experts considered it advisable.” 

Sen’s team used data collected from the COVID Tracking Project, which was initiated by the magazine The Atlantic in partnership with Related Sciences. The project collates data from state health agencies and makes it publicly available. The sample included 3,023 data observations.  

“Our results indicate that a scenario of no SAHOs over this time period would have resulted in 220 percent higher cumulative case rates and 22 percent higher cumulative fatality rates compared to if there had been full imposition of SAHOs,” said Sangeetha Padalabalanarayanan, Department of Health Services Administration, School of Health Professions and co-first author of the study. 

For purposes of the study, SAHOs were considered to be in effect when a state’s governor issued an order for residents of the entire state to leave home only for essential activities, and when schools and nonessential businesses were closed. Seven states never imposed SAHOs, and 12 states lifted their SAHOs before the May 4 study cut off.   

Bisakha Sen, Ph.D.A second aim of the study was to see if the proportion of African Americans in a state was associated with the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in that state.

“Previous attempts to understand the extent of COVID-19 cases within the African American population had been done at a county level,” said co-first author Vidya Sagar Hanumanthu, Department of Health Services Administration. “Our state-level analysis showed that there was an association between the African American population and COVID-19 cases statewide. This finding adds to evidence from existing studies using county-level data on racial disparities in COVID-19 infection rates and underlines the urgency of better understanding and addressing these disparities.”  

The findings underscore the importance of stay-at-home orders in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to address racial disparities in rates of infection.  

“While the high economic cost makes SAHOs unsustainable as a long-term policy, our findings could help inform federal, state and local policymakers in weighing the costs and benefits of different short-term options to combat the pandemic,” Sen said. “Our findings also emphasize the importance of understanding and addressing the drivers of racial disparities in COVID-19 outcomes as part of the overarching goal of improving health equity in the United States.”

Mohanraj Thirumalai, Ph.D., assistant professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Health Professions’ Department of Health Services Administration, has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. The three-year grant is part of the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects funding program.

Khayla Boykin, a Health Care Management student expected to graduate August 2021, has been awarded a UAB School of Health Professions Blazer Forever Scholarship. The award is given to five SHP students during Homecoming Week based on their answer to an essay question. This year, there were nearly 100 submissions to the question: What makes you most proud to be a UAB Blazer?

Mark Lainoff is not afraid. Doesn’t fear success – elected UAB MSHA Class 55 President. Willing to take risks – started a business that went under. No horror over pain – followed his college baseball dream through injury. No terror of the unknown – volunteered to serve at UAB’s COVID-19 testing site.

Miranda Zaragoza, a member of MSHA Class 56, was featured as part of the ONE MSHA Campaign. In only six months, the campaign raised more than $1 million to support scholarships and more.

Jamond Glass, a member of MSHA Class 55, was featured as part of the ONE MSHA Campaign. In only six months, the campaign raised more than $1 million to support scholarships and more.

Allyson Hall, Ph.D., director of the UAB Graduate Programs in Healthcare Quality and Safety in the School of Health Professions, was named to the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) Board of Directors on July 1, 2020.

Michelle Brown, Ph.D., program director, M.S. in Healthcare Simulation, is one of ten UAB faculty honored with the UAB Graduate Dean’s Excellence in Mentorship Award. She participated in a virtual reception September 9, 2020, where she received the award for exceptional work with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Sue Feldman, Ph.D., professor and director of Graduate Programs in Health Informatics, is leading UAB's GuideSafe™ platform along with Mohanraj Thirumalai, Ph.D., assistant professor of health informatics in the Department of Health Services Administration.

How do you get a reliable count of people who often are stigmatized, distrust local authorities —including researchers — and are afraid to be identified? That was the problem facing a team of researchers that included Ria Hearld, associate professor, Department of Health Services Administration in the School of Health Professions.

Shannon H. Houser, Ph.D., MPH, RHIA, FAHIMA, professor in the UAB Department of Health Services Administration, will receive the 2020 AAHIM Distinguished Member Award from the Alabama Association of Health Information Management. The award is given annually to an active member with at least 10 years’ experience “marked by distinction, excellence of service and contribution to the profession.”

In an AcademyHealth blog post in honor of Mother's Day, Christy Harris Lemak, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Health Services Administration, reflects on the disproportionate effect working from home is having on colleagues with young children and offers ideas for how to help. "As one of my colleagues noted, rather than pitting ourselves against each other in a dystopian version of 'academic hunger games,' the goal should be to support one another, recognizing that we all face different barriers and we should put our collective brainpower on how to fix a flawed system."

Alabama has been particularly affected by the opioid epidemic, say health care providers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Armed with a grant from the Alabama Department of Mental Health, UAB is launching a pilot program aimed at getting more opioid users into treatment.

Lynne Shelton, a student in the UAB School of Health Professions’ M.S. in Healthcare Simulation program, has been named Teacher Educator of the Year in the Health Science Division by the Alabama Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE).

School of Health Professions' Dean Andrew Butler joined Amanda Dorsey, faculty member in the Department of Health Services Administration, for their "Quarantine Conversations" recently. This is a series of candid conversations posted on the department's LinkedIn page that captures people in their "natural habitat" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the Deep South sees a surge in cases of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, experts from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have created a symptom checker to identify hot spots where the virus is spreading. The new website, HelpBeatCOVID19.org, will provide public health officials insight into underserved areas based on the symptomatic data collected from the region and could help inform and enhance public health observation.  

First-year students in the UAB School of Health Professions’ Master of Science in Health Informatics (MSHI) program, placed second in the Mendix Student App Contest.