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FOCUS AREAS

The JAL Foundation provides opportunities for its participants to work on projects in five healthcare related focus areas:

Biomedical and Clinical Research
Participants working on projects in this focus area participate in biomedical and clinical research. The majority of projects in this focus area have been retrospective clinical studies examining a series of patients with particular medical problems or a series of patients that have undergone particular surgical procedures with the goal of answering a clinical question. Some participants doing projects in this focus area have joined labs that are involved in basic science research.

Healthcare Information Technology and Informatics
Participants working on projects in this focus area have focused on research projects examining the role of, need for, or impact of information technologies or clinical data registries deployed in the healthcare setting. Several projects in this focus area have examined some aspect of clinical decision support, healthcare information exchange and the deployment, use and impact of clinical and administrative database driven solutions.

Healthcare Operations Research
Participants working on projects in this focus area have worked on projects that assess some aspect of clinical operations in healthcare facilities. As an example, some of the projects in this focus area are looking at patient flow and bottlenecks in hospitals and characterizing trends in patient transfers from outside hospital facilities to tertiary care facilities, among others.

Healthcare Economics
Participants working on projects in this area are typically interested in healthcare economics, healthcare finance, or policy. Projects in this focus area might examine not only clinical outcomes but the associated cost of achieving these outcomes. A recent area of interest within this focus area is using healthcare claims registries to conduct comparative effectiveness analysis. Other projects might look at some aspect of healthcare workforce trends or some aspect of provider supply and demand.

Healthcare Entrepreneurship
Participants that become involved in projects in this focus area have generally focused on developing and commercializing early stage solutions with the potential to provide meaningful impact in healthcare. Some efforts have been centered on technologies emanating from the Healthcare Information Technology and Informatics focus area. Teams working on projects in this focus area are multidiscaplinary and focus not only on product development but also go to market strategies, finance, marketing and sales.

Senior Design Projects
The JAL Foundation has also sponsored projects for undergraduate senior design groups as well as graduate students working on their masters degree theses or doctor of philosophy dissertations when the focus of these efforts fits within one of the above JAL Foundation targeted focus areas.