mPOWEr is a project driven by both creative group effort and individual motivation. Patrick Sanger exemplifies both of these!
Congratulations to Patrick, who defended his PhD dissertation in Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI) on June 5, 2015 . His dissertation was entitled: “Patient-Centered Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Wound Tracking Tool.” And, of course, it is about mPOWEr.
Patrick completed a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Yale University before coming to the University of Washington for medical school. He discovered his interest in health informatics in the summer before his second year of medical school, while working with Paul Pottinger, the Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at UW Medical Center. With Dr. Pottinger mentorship, Patrick developed an automated system to discover catheter-associated urinary tract infections by querying the medical record.
Building on his interest in healthcare-associated infections and improving care quality generally, Patrick took a leave from medical school to work on a new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of surgical site infection, the most common and costly healthcare associated infection. During the three years of his graduate studies, Patrick contributed fundamentally to the design of mPOWEr, our mobile health tool that seeks to improve care quality and patient experience after hospital discharge by improving patient-provider communication about surgical site infection.
Patrick was mentored in his thesis work by Harborview surgeon, Heather Evans, and BHI faculty and alumni Bill Lober, Wanda Pratt and Andrea Hartzler. Patrick will resume medical school in July 2015 and plans to pursue an academic career focused on designing technologies that support high-quality, patient-centered care.
Check out the BHI department announcement here!