University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor of industrial and systems engineering Nicole Werner and collaborators have advanced to the second round of a national competition to develop technology to benefit children with special healthcare needs and their families.
Werner’s team is among seven nationwide to win a share of a $100,000 award after the first phase of the Care Coordination for Children with Special Health Care Needs Challenge through the Health Resources and Health Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The Health Resources and Health Administration is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Werner is partnering with Ryan Coller, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and Barbara Katz, co-director of the nonprofit organization Family Voices of Wisconsin, to create a mobile app to connect and support family caregivers of children with enternal feeding tubes. Werner will bring a human factors engineering approach to the project, insuring a human-centered design of the technology.
The second phase of the challenge, which includes prototype development and testing, runs through July 2019. Three to five projects will then move on to larger-scale testing, with a grand prize winner receiving $150,000.