Request for Proposals - Jump ARCHES

Priority RFP Call - Spring 2023

Description

The Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation (Jump ARCHES) endowment offers this priority Request for Proposals to faculty and researchers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, health care providers of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, and/or OSF HealthCare clinicians.

The seed funding from the Jump ARCHES program allows teams to demonstrate proof-of-concept ideas or generate pilot data.

Goals

The goal of this priority RFP is to address the challenges faced by our community and society as we develop policies and procedures for health care delivery through new mediums including tele-health platforms, and to improve health care quality and patient safety through the combined efforts of researchers, engineers, clinicians, and social and behavioral scientists.

The Jump ARCHES program seeks proposals from cross-institution and interdisciplinary teams for projects that will result in clinical impact, scholarly contributions, large externally funded grants, intellectual property, and/or new startup companies.

To be successful, applicants are expected to develop deep professional relationships that will result in highly collaborative and engaged interdisciplinary teams that can identify and tackle significant health care problems. 

To achieve this goal and promote collaboration between institutions, OSF HealthCare and the Health Care Engineering Systems Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign encourage applicants to inquire if their ideas require facilities or technologies that they cannot access at their home institution.

Examples of such facilities and technologies may include simulation areas, robotics technology, 3D printing, or other prototyping and manufacturing needs.

View these facilities on the HCESC website, Jump Simulation Center Urbana website, and Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center Peoria website.

Focus Areas

This round, we are seeking proposals incorporating solutions in digital health, data science, health equities, health care access, AI, and related areas in the development of technologies to:

• Develop novel technologies and new automations which adopt and incorporate individual health data, diagnostic results and data analytics to provide individuals with tailored roadmap to drive improved health, and where appropriate, help them navigate the health care system.
• Address the evolving standards of care to incorporate personalized precision medicine and genomic best practices.
• Address accuracy and completeness of diagnosis, treatment, and health literacy of historically underserved populations.
• Alleviate administrative burden at the bedside to increase the quality of patient interactions.
• Improve the ease of digital connection to health care.
• Reduce health care burnout and improve recruitment and retention of clinicians
• Assist in diagnosis and treatment of Neurological Disorders through collaborative efforts with the OSF Children's Hospital of Illinois and Illinois Neurological Institute. Emphasis will be on early diagnosis of neurological disorders, enhancement of social skills associated with chronic neurological disorders, support of children and adults with chronic neurological disorders as they navigate everyday life at home, in school, and in the workplace, and exploration of technologies to utilize unique skills of individuals with neurological disorders.
• Explore the needs of people with visible and non-visible disabilities
• Technological, human, and societal dimensions of the future work in health care. Teams can leverage Jump ARCHES pilot data for proposals to NSF's Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier: Core Research (FW-HTF) program.
• Advance the science of minority health and health disparities by supporting research on family health and well-being and resilience. Teams can leverage Jump ARCHES pilot data for proposals to NIH's Risk and Protective Factors of Family Health and Family Level Interventions program.
• Special attention will be given to proposals addressing:
  • Social and behavioral sciences topics, especially related to issues involving inequity and poverty, social and behavioral health, and the digital revolution (for more information on these topics, see the grand challenges at the Center of Social and Behavioral Sciences).
  • Neurological sciences-particularly assistive technologies
  • Autism spectrum disorders
  • Social and behavior influences on the cancer continuum
• Outstanding proposals in additional areas affecting health and wellness may be considered for funding.

Solutions will incorporate aspects of the following:

• Digital Health and Data Science: This area concerns designing technologies to improve tele-medicine, data gathering, social media data pairing, sensor design, designing assistive technologies, robotics and advancing the use of data science, AI, and machine learning to augment and assist in improving the costs, quality, and patient/provider experience.
• Special consideration will be given to block chain and other decentralization associated technologies.
• Health Equities and Community Health: This area concerns mitigating the impact of age, location, and social barriers in delivering quality health care to vulnerable populations. Special emphasis will be given to proposals that address racism, social justice, social and implicit biases, health equity, and access.
• Simulation and Education: This area concerns using simulation and other virtual or augmented reality technologies to train and evaluate current and future medical professionals. New modalities, AR/VR/MR, design of hardware-based simulators with a focus on Human Factors, Interprofessional Education, etc. will be given preference.

Jump ARCHES has over 140 projects at a total of $10 million since 2014. View all funded projects here: https://healtheng.illinois.edu/jumparches/fundedgrants.

Funding Support

There are three levels of support: Phase 0, Phase 1, and Phase 2

Phase 0 awards are for up to 6 months of support up to $25,000. These short duration awards are expected for rapid results and can be used for projects proposing, for example, purchase of shared equipment, collection of preliminary data, sponsorship of a capstone design project, conducting team development activities, etc.

Phase 1 awards are for 18 months of seed money support up to $100,000. These longer duration awards are expected to generate proof-of-concept ideas or generate pilot data. These projects should allow new teams to develop effective working relationships and project concepts that will lead to highly competitive external funding source applications or commercially viable technologies/services. Phase 1 awards have been revised from 12 months and $75,000 to allow teams to develop more substantial results.

Phase 2 awards are for continuing funding of Phase 1 awards. Discussions with Jump ARCHES program leadership is mandatory to apply for this award to discuss funding amount and performance timeline. Investigators may request Phase 2 funding if Phase 1 projects have met specified goals. Furthermore, the PI must have demonstrated at least one of the following outcomes from Phase 1: submission of invention disclosure with UIUC OTM - OSF OIM, evidence of application for external funding beyond UIUC, OSF, or UICOMP, or technology license or successful implementation of Phase 1 results at OSF or a related health care organization.

Phase 1 and 2 proposals need to identify future or matching funding from federal, state, county, or other governmental or non-governmental organizations.

Fall funding priorities will be mostly for Phase 0 and Phase 2 proposals. Spring funding priorities will be mostly for Phase 1 proposals due to the need for longer time to develop effective teams and project concepts.

Evaluation Criteria

• Proposals will be specifically evaluated for their respective alignment to program goals (relevance), the potential impact on patient and learner outcomes (impact), and the proposed plan and quality of the team (approach).
• Proposals will be examined for team composition (inclusion of appropriate UIUC and OSF/UICOMP investigators and equitable distribution of funding between organizations) and demonstration of healthy existing team relationships.
• Evaluation will take in consideration of next steps and advancement of the work, as well as plans for future funding and/or product development activities (e.g., IP, start-up, who will advance the work, commercialization plan).

Application Preparation

For the preparation of a responsive application, please contact:

Antonios Michalos, MD, MS, Associate Director of the Health Care Engineering Systems Center
(217) 244-4563
michalos@illinois.edu

For questions on the submission of the application, please contact:

Seth Stutzman, SS, BS
ARCHES Program Coordinator
(309) 308-9409
seth.t.stutzman@jumpsimulation.org

Questions can be sent to michalos@illinois.edu and seth.t.stutzman@jumpsimulation.org.

Access the Online Application