Ten teams across the University of California won the 2017 Larry L. Sautter Award for using information technology to make university operations more effective and efficient and to better serve faculty, staff, students and patients.
Systemwide Chief Information Officer Tom Andriola announced the winners today (Aug. 8, 2017) at the UC Computing Services Conference in San Diego.
The annual award, which is sponsored by the UC Information Technology Leadership Council, recognizes collaborative innovations in IT that advance the university’s missions of teaching, research, public service and patient care, or that improve the effectiveness of university processes. The award encourages collaboration and solution sharing across the UC system.
The 2017 award winners and honorable mentions are:
Golden awards
Prehospital to Emergency Department Data Exchange – a SAFR Transition of Care (UC San Diego Health) gives paramedics access to a patient’s electronic medical records, including important information such as medications and allergies. Paramedics can transmit their assessment to the emergency department prior to arrival, giving the hospital the key information it needs to prepare the necessary resources for treatment. Ultimately, the pre-hospital and emergency department records are merged into the patient’s hospital electronic medical record. This improvement strengthens the quality of patient care by allowing all providers, from the paramedics to the hospital staff, access to up-to-date medical information.
Auto Tracking Camera Podcast System (UC San Diego) is a classroom recording system that has an automated tracking camera capable of finding and following the instructor during a lecture — even capturing writing on chalkboards. The system is easy for instructors to use and was designed in response to student requests.
Putting Youth on the Map (UC Davis) is an interactive website that provides access to new data and analyses on the well-being and vulnerability of California youth. The tool serves as a powerful resource for researchers, youth organizers, youth advocacy networks and others who are working to ensure the well-being of young people in the state.
Silver awards
Dash: An Easy-To-Use Data Publication Service (UC Office of the President) is a user-friendly platform for managing, archiving and sharing research data. Researchers can use Dash to document, preserve and publicly share their research data with minimal support, as well as find, retrieve, and reuse data made available by others.
Secure Box (UCSF) allows UCSF employees to safely store Protected Health Information (PHI) in the cloud. With Secure Box, PHI is encrypted and stays encrypted when downloaded. Secure Box also allows administrators to report on PHI, prevent people from sharing it outside of UCSF, and be certain that no one outside UCSF can access it.
Honorable mentions
Drones (UC Davis) is an easy-to-use management tool for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, more commonly known as drones. It ensures drones flown on UC campuses comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations and UC policies. UC uses drones for surveying, studying, monitoring, mapping, aerial photography, and other research purposes. Released in 2016, the Drones tool has been adopted by eight UC campuses and helps each UC campus track its use of drones.
The Opus Project (UCLA) is a web-based tool that supports and streamlines the process for academic appointments and reviews. Opus integrates trusted data from payroll, the Academic Senate, the faculty recruitment system, and the School of Medicine, providing the first unified view of all academic appointees at UCLA and making it easy for administrators to access key information such as salary comparisons across different units, the types of reviews an appointee is eligible for and the next step in the appointee’s career path.
UC Health Hack 2017 (UC San Diego Health) took place March 4-5, 2017, and brought together a diverse group of technology professionals, clinicians, engineers, and students to propose and create solutions to various challenges in health care today. With over 181 participants, the UC Health Hack focused on improving health care delivery using leading-edge technologies and methodologies. The winning projects were “Reality Art Therapy – Incentivizing Patient Mobility,” “Medical Noise-Canceling Headset,” and “Dr. Home,” an interface for better communication between doctors and geriatric patients.
Instructional Planning & Administration (UC Davis) is a class scheduling tool that is now being used to schedule more than 3,000 courses across 61 academic subjects. It streamlines the complex, labor-intensive process of class scheduling between faculty, department staff and the Registrar that can vary across departments, and also helps departments make smarter, data-driven decisions about which courses to offer and when to offer them to better meet student needs.
Cal Answers Principal Investigator Portfolio Projections (UC Berkeley) gives research administrators and faculty a comprehensive overview of their funds, including their budget, expenses, current balance, projections and projected balances, to help them manage their projects. The PI Portfolio replaced existing Excel systems, created streamlined and standardized business procedures, reduced manual work, eliminated common errors, and provided an improved mechanism for communication between faculty and research administrators.