Hager presents at 2020 BIOMEDigital
BIOMEDigital is a two-day free virtual event for the biomed industry, and took place November 4-5, 2020. Expert-led sessions focused on topics like digital health, surgical robotics, and 3D printing.
Hager participated in the event’s medical robotics panel, “How Research Efforts are Changing the way Medtech uses Robotics.” Other panelists included Russell Taylor from Johns Hopkins University, Gregory Fischer from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Hao Su from The City College of New York.
The event is available to view on demand through December 5: https://informamarkets.6connex.com/event/BIOMEDigital/login
Hager presents at SAIL Presymposium
The Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems (SAIL) is a new annual international conference exploring the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques into clinical medicine. SAIL provides a forum for clinicians, clinical informaticians and AI researchers to discuss approaches and challenges to using these approaches in the healthcare domain.
Originally planned as a 3-day symposium to be held in Hamilton, Bermuda, the 2020 event was instead a half-day virtual pre-symposium with live sessions on Oct 21, 12–3pm ET.
Hager participated on the panel “New frontiers in healthcare AI.”
Watch the event on Youtube:
Hopkins-led workshop offers strategies to accelerate robot deployment in infectious disease crises
Robots often take on tasks too risky for humans to perform, such as cleaning up radioactive waste or replacing responders in dangerous search and rescue missions. The global pandemic is no exception. Robots are being used to perform tasks that would normally put health care workers at risk of infection; in hospitals, robotic systems are helping staff to deliver food and supplies, disinfect equipment, and manage ICU ventilators.
Still, even with robots on the front lines of COVID-19, there are several barriers to wide-scale robot deployment during infectious disease emergencies. To prepare for the next pandemic and perhaps aid in the current one, a virtual workshop entitled “The Role of Robotics in Infectious Disease Crises” was co-hosted by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC).
Held on July 9-10, the workshop sought to identify the major challenges and opportunities for responsible robotics innovation in future emergencies.
More than forty people participated in the discussions, including engineers, clinicians, critical care workers, public health and safety experts, and emergency responders. Johns Hopkins computer scientists Russell Taylor and Greg Hager chaired the workshop, along with robotics experts from MIT, University of Pennsylvania, and Texas A&M University.
“A major challenge is that these robots will be required to operate in unstructured environments like busy ICU units, and that can require a significant level of situational awareness and autonomy. As technical capabilities continue to advance, robotic systems could play a much more substantial role in future crises, especially if an appropriate national strategy can be developed and implemented now,” said Taylor.
The workshop report presents a roadmap for increasing national preparedness to use robotic systems and technology more effectively in times of crisis, which includes:
- identify key challenges faced by health care responders and the general population
- examine robotic/technological responses to these challenges
- identify key research/knowledge barriers that need to be addressed in developing effective, scalable solutions
- identify workforce training, regulatory, and infrastructure needs that should be addressed in order to enable rapid deployment of these systems;
- suggest follow-on steps to more fully develop and implement this strategy
In addition to these recommendations, the report offers many examples of how highly capable robotic systems can help meet clinical care and public health challenges such as those posed by the current pandemic. For example, the demand for home health care is increasing because people are worried about leaving home. This suggests a tremendous opportunity for home care robots, which can provide care as well as companionship to alleviate the effects of isolation and distancing.
As noted in the report, every disaster presents new twists or unforeseen challenges, as evident with COVID-19. Thus, any robotic solution must be highly adaptable so that it can be ready for situations as they arise. Continuing advances in rapid prototyping, sensing, machine vision, and artificial intelligence will further increase this adaptability in the years to come.
The full report is available here.
Read the Overview summary from CCC
Hager featured on Johns Hopkins Medicine podcast
Greg Hager, Director of the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, was recently featured in two episodes of the the Johns Hopkins Medicine “HealthNews Feed” podcast. Hager talks to host Elizabeth Tracy about how engineering technologies will enable older people to age in place.
Listen now:
December 24, 2018 – Beyond Rehab
December 17, 2018 – Technology and Aging
Hager named AAAS Fellow
Gregory Hager is among 416 fellows elected this year to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Founded in 1874, the AAAS recognizes scholars whose research is considered by their peers to be scientifically or socially distinguished. The distinction is unrelated to the annual list of fellows announced each spring by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Hager is the Mandell Bellmore Professor in the Department of Computer Science in the Whiting School of Engineering. His research centers on computer vision and robotics, and he directs the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. Currently he is working to develop intelligent robotic assistants.
Hager was elected to the AAAS for his contributions to vision-based robotics and to computer-enhanced interventional medicine.
“I’m honored to be named an AAAS Fellow,” Hager says. “I look forward to advancing the mission of AAAS to promote science and engineering, and to articulating the importance of computing research as it pertains to all areas of science.”
The newly elected fellows will each be awarded a certificate and a rosette pin during the AAAS Fellows Forum on Saturday, Feb. 16, in Washington, D.C.
Hager named TUM Ambassador
Gregory Hager, Mandell Bellmore Professor in the Department of Computer Science and director of the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, has been named a 2017 Technische Universität München (TUM) Ambassador. Located in Munich, Germany, TUM is one of Europe’s leading research universities.
Each year, TUM honors a group of select international top-level scientists and research alumni with the title of “TUM Ambassadors” in recognition of their services, acknowledging them as representatives of all the TUM research alumni around the globe.
In 2015, Hager won the prestigious Institute for Advanced Studies Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship, named for TUM Professor Hans Fischer (1881-1945), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1930 for his pioneering work on hemoglobin and related structures. These fellowships are awarded to outstanding international scientists who will spend three years exploring innovative, high-risk topics in collaboration with a TUM research group. Hager’s project is exploring the modeling of data on human task performance, with a goal of creating intelligent robotic assistants who will enhance human ability through individualized training.