SHU Alums, Students Win Healthcare Information’s Research Contest

Topics include AI in dental care and early detection of breast and lung cancer

Three 2024 Sacred Heart University students with master’s degrees in healthcare informatics—Vinaya Sree Samala, Manasa Kosireddy and Durga Malleswari Koratani—placed first, second and third respectively in the recent New England Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) student  poster competition in Norwood, MA.

HIMSS is a global adviser, thought leader and member-based society committed to reforming the global health ecosystem through information and technology. The New England chapter recently held its annual spring conference, which included a poster competition to showcase student research.

Samala’s presentation, “The Dental Detective: Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) Evolving Role in Early Caries Detection,” investigated the potential use of AI to improve the accuracy of detecting caries (tooth decay or cavities) in dental X-rays. Her research showed that AI models outperform dentists, achieving up to 70-98% accuracy, and suggest that AI has the potential to become a reliable tool for dentists, leading to earlier interventions, better patient outcomes and possibly lower dental care costs.

“The feedback from the judges and the organizing committee was enlightening, broadening my understanding of research,” said Samala. “This experience gave me a clear vision of the potential steps forward in my academic and professional journey.”

Kosireddy’s project was titled, “Integration of AI with Breast Cancer Screening to Improve Clinical Outcomes.” She conducted a comprehensive literature review to evaluate how integrating AI technologies with breast cancer screening mammography can enhance early cancer detection rates, diagnostic accuracy and reliability compared to traditional radiologist interpretation alone. She concluded that AI-assisted screening, combined with human expert oversight, could significantly elevate the quality and efficiency of breast cancer screening programs globally, ultimately increasing early detection rates and saving lives.

“This research experience gave me immense knowledge on literature review,” Kosireddy said. “I also gained more confidence and improved my communication skills.”

Koratani presented her findings through a display titled, “Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Imaging Technology Can Improve the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer.” She conducted a comprehensive review of multiple databases and selected the most relevant articles about radiology, lung cancer diagnosis and NLP, a machine learning technology that enables computers to interpret and understand human language. She concluded that NLP could enhance the accuracy and efficiency of lung cancer diagnosis, which she said is crucial given the high incidence and mortality rate associated with the disease.

“Presenting my poster at the 2024 NE HIMSS was incredibly beneficial. It helped me develop critical thinking and communication skills, particularly in articulating complex ideas succinctly,” said Koratani. “As an aspiring Epic analyst professional—Epic is a widely used health records system—I gained valuable experience in presenting findings to an audience, handling questions and networking with other professionals in the field,” she said.

“The faculty and I so proud of our students in the master’s in healthcare informatics program,” said Stephen Burrows, director of healthcare informatics at SHU. “The success of our students reflect the expertise and dedication of our faculty to our students. As the co-chair of the HIMSS New England student activities committee, I look forward to the poster competition as an annual event to highlight student research across the chapter.”

“New England HIMSS is proud to offer the student members of our organization the opportunity to present posters at our annual conference,” said Renee Broadbent, president of the New England HIMSS. “The students and student activities committee are a vital part of our organization and growing our future leaders in health care. Each year we are impressed with depth of research and professional presentation of these posters, and it is a part of our conference everyone looks forward to.”