Add to Google Calendar
Date:  Thu, May 06, 2010
Time:  10:00AM to 11:00AM
Location:  Holmes Hall 398
Speaker:  Dr. S. K. Mun, Virginia Tech - National Capital Region

 

Abstract:  The use of information technology (IT) offers great opportunities to modernize the heterogeneous and disjointed U.S. healthcare system. While there are incidents of success in transforming certain sectors of healthcare with information technology, there remain many greater challenges, especially during the current healthcare reform era. The field of Radiology has made a dramatic transformation as it eliminated the use of films over the past 20 years; now digital radiology is truly global. Meanwhile, many IT based attempts such as telemedicine and e-health to address healthcare system problems have not made much progress. Major difficulties in adoption of these new technologies are largely due to the lack of systematic integration of new tools into routine clinical operations, cultural barriers that grew out of transaction-based health care, and the declining status of public health. The federal government's major new push includes the modernization of primary care, and family care in particular, where more than 60% of overall healthcare activities take place. Medical Home is an emerging new model of in the primary care system that is integrated, coordinated, responsive to patient's needs and accountable. The Medical Home model depends on extensive use of electronic medical records (EMR) and the success is not assured, as there are many cultural, managerial and financial constraints. This seminar will review the success in digital radiology, difficulties in e-health and telemedicine and the challenges of EMR in modernizing primary care through medical homes.

 

Biography:  S. K. Mun, joined Virginia Tech, National Capital Region about a year ago after many years at Georgetown University Medical Center.  Currently as a professor of physics and medical research fellow of Institute of Advanced Studies he is responsible for developing a number of new biomedical research programs including neuroscience program, health systems research, medical informatics and medical imaging. Dr. Mun's research, over the past 25 years as a head of ISIS Center at Georgetown included diagnostic imaging, chronic illness management, home monitoring, telemedicine, disease surveillance, surgical instrumentation, disaster relief in Africa, robotics for casualty assessment and cancer therapy with total grants and contract exceeding $100 million. As a long time research partner with the Department of Defense he championed the development of Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) and global tele-radiology service for US peacekeeping forces in Hungary and Bosnia. As Associate VP for Special Programs at Georgetown University Medical Center, he managed congressional programs for the medical center.  He is a 2007 recipient of the Thurman Award for Significant Contribution to the Military Medicine.   Dr. Mun received his doctoral degree in physics for his research in the electronic properties of hemoglobin at the State University of New York, Albany.  His postdoctoral fellowships include training in medical physics at the University Of Colorado Medical Center and MRI contrast development research training in Dr. Lauterbur's lab at the SUNY, Stony Brook.  In the early 80's, he led the development of one of the first 1.5T high field whole body MRI systems at Columbia University Medical Center.