Research
The Arlington Innovation Center: Health Research (AIC:HR) was established in 2010 to expand Virginia Tech’s programs in biomedical research and education to the National Capital Region.
Our faculty and staff expertise is in imaging, informatics, machine learning, and systems modeling. We apply this expertise in a wide range of health-science domains, such as human performance, neuroscience, combat casualty care, and radiology. We also have deep knowledge in open source software development and how to govern and nurture open-source communities that can implement and sustain enterprise-scale electronic health record systems. AIC:HR disseminates its research to public and private organizations through publications, educational programs, and workshops.
To see a list of current and ongoing research projects, click here.
Completed Projects and Topics:
In partnership with Carilion Clinic, we are conducting a comprehensive assessment of primary care clinic operation under the “Medical Home” model, which is a new approach for comprehensive and coordinated care, especially for patients with chronic disease. This assessment research will help optimize primary care practices that are operating within stringent financial, health information technology, and management constraints. AIC:HR is also examining the conditions influencing end-of-life care in rural Virginia. (Collaborators:Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA and CNA. in Arlington, VA.)
Combat casualty care performed by medics saves lives, but also places the medic and other first responders at significant risk of becoming casualties themselves. We researched autonomous robotic systems to support casualty evacuation, primarily in the areas of situation awareness and casualty identification based on coordinated robot networks, and portable medical diagnostics (Collaborators: AGNC, Los Angeles, CA, Imperium Inc, Silver Spring, MD, Perl Technology and Carilion Clinic, Roanoke, VA).
Development of a Rugged Medic Smartphone (2012-Present):
In conjunction with the US Army and leveraging experience from STARIX technology, AIC:HR managed the design, building, and testing of durable field medic devices based on commercial smartphones. The devices included ultrawideband communications, making it possible to connect to a host of physiological monitors and external communications networks. The overall result was a compact handheld device that enhanced the capabilities of field medics to fulfill their critical missions.
The technology of medical imaging, medical informatics and bioinformatics offers exciting new possibilities in preventing illnesses, developing new therapeutics and developing a new health care model. However, the exploding amount of different data types at many locations hampers its efficient use for the next generation of biomedical research. AIC:HR is designing a state-of-the-art enterprise-wide knowledge sharing capability for data collection, information integration, knowledge extraction and research management within the framework of information assurance. (Collaborators:Children’s National Medical Center, Carilion Clinic, Mallinkrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis and ISIS Center, Georgetown University).