Primal Pappachan, Roberto Yus, Anupam Joshi and Tim Finin, Rafiki: A Semantic and Collaborative Approach to Community Health-Care in Underserved Areas, 10th IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing, 22-15 October2014, Miami.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) act as liaisons between health-care providers and patients in underserved or un-served areas. However, the lack of information sharing and training support impedes the effectiveness of CHWs and their ability to correctly diagnose patients. In this paper, we propose and describe a system for mobile and wearable computing devices called Rafiki which assists CHWs in decision making and facilitates collaboration among them. Rafiki can infer possible diseases and treatments by representing the diseases, their symptoms, and patient context in OWL ontologies and by reasoning over this model. The use of semantic representation of data makes it easier to share knowledge related to disease, symptom, diagnosis guidelines, and patient demography, between various personnel involved in health-care (e.g., CHWs, patients, health-care providers). We describe the Rafiki system with the help of a motivating community health-care scenario and present an Android prototype for smart phones and Google Glass.

UMBC’s Office of the Vice President for Research has launched a new website to increase awareness of UMBC’s research activity and to provide enhanced access to campus-wide resources that support research and grant-related activities.

“This new window into the innovative discoveries and creations of the UMBC community will empower students, faculty and staff by ensuring their accomplishments reach a broader audience within the campus community and beyond. It will also act as a consolidated portal to events and resources provided by UMBC to better position all of our scholars to advance their fields of study,” stated Vice President for Research Karl Steiner.

To subscribe to the news and events, which appear on the front page of the site, visitors can join the Office of the Vice President for Research myUMBC group. The site itself can be bookmarked at research.umbc.edu.

Top Five Reasons to Join UMBC’s Students for a Healthy Baltimore

Basically we started out as part of a giant nonprofit called Health Leads, and we’ve been on campus for quite a few years. 

2. SHB has incredible opportunities for those looking to go into medicine 

We have about 20 advocates a semester that work hands on at Baltimore Medical Systems to refer patients to resources that in turn improve health. For example, one of my clients had a two year old with severe asthma attacks, so I was able to provide listings for housing that was within her budget, but mold free, so her child could breathe easier. The process of becoming an advocate is competitive, last semester we only accepted about a third of candidates, but you get the opportunity to help people and patient contact hours! Advocates can also shadow the doctors that they get to know in the clinic. 

3. SHB has top notch leadership opportunities

**Please note that George Bush has no affiliation with this organization

Advocates get to lead committees which you will read more about (and be invited to join in a second) and each year there are five leadership team members that have the entire destiny of the organization in their hands. Plus, everyone involved will have opportunities to network with professionals at Health Care Access Maryland, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Baltimore Medical Systems,  and assorted community centers. You will even get to collaborate with students from Loyola. 

4. There is a committee for everyone!

You can apply, have a position, and learn more about specific aspects of health. Plus those who are part of the committees have a better shot if they choose to apply for an advocate position. The committees are: community events, campus events, immigrant outreach, web and social media development, and resource management. Click on the following link to learn more and apply!
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 Students for a Healthy Baltimore Committees

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5. Baltimore is the coolest city and getting to know the city makes you statistically more cool

This might not be an approved statement, but fill the Google form above, come to the meeting and find out for yourself. 

If you have any questions, please email UMBCshb@gmail.com!