Quick Wins

Quick Wins is a funding program put in place to provide rapid solutions to unmet clinical and business needs at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The multidisciplinary team is a result of the $20M alliance between Georgia Tech and Children's and is made up of clinicians, researchers, and administrators from both entities. With this collaboration, Georgia Tech and Children's strive towards the goal of becoming the global leader in pediatric technologies.

Quick Wins project proposals must be submitted by teams comprised of individuals from each organization, Children's and Georgia Tech (may include academic and/or GTRI assets). The proposals must address a project that provides an answer to an unmet business or clinical need as identified by a clinician, technologist, or Children's leader. The project must be capable of delivering a workable solution (at minimum a validated "prototype") into the hands of a clinician or team within 18 months from the receipt of funds and project start.
 

Get Started

To get started, we suggest that you first fill out and submit the Interest Form introducing your problem and/or project to assess whether your proposed idea aligns with the goal of Quick Wins. Although the Interest Form is not required, it may be beneficial to do so before completing the full Proposal. A member of the team will be in contact with you shortly to provide feedback, answer questions, and explain information regarding resources available to you in order to collaborate and innovate with the Georgia Tech and Children's Healthcare communities. The team reviews the submitted proposals on the last Wednesday of every month. Proposals and Interest Forms are accepted at any time. Submissions received before by the 1st day of the month will be reviewed at that month's meeting; all others will be reviewed at the following meeting. Proposal and Interest Forms are located below. Completed forms should be submitted to sheri.russell@gatech.edu.

Quick Wins Interest Form

Quick Wins Proposal Form
 

Team (Voting & Non-Voting)

Leanne West - Leanne West (Chair) is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center and the Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies for Georgia Tech. She serves as the technical liaison between Georgia Tech and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Ms. West works closely with Children’s to understand and identify problems that need a solution to allow Children’s to take better care of their patients. She also runs a funding program as a part of the relationship with Children’s called “Quick Wins,” where problems that are clinician driven and that can be wholly solved in 18 months or less are funded.

Ms. West serves on the executive management team of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and on the health team within Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). She has served as the twice-elected Chair of the Georgia Tech Executive Board. She was recognized by Georgia Trend magazine as one of Georgia’s “40 Under 40” in 2004; she was selected for Leadership Georgia in 2008; she was a team member for the international Optical Society 2012 Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award; She received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award in 2014, and she was Women in Technology’s Woman of the year in 2014. She started her own company, Intelligent Access, to take her invention of a wireless personal captioning system to market.
 

Voting Team Members include:

Nathan Call, PhD, BCBA-DNate Call is the Director of the Severe Behavior Program at the Marcus Autism Center. Dr. Call’s current research interests include the assessment and treatment of severe behavior disorders. This work led him to primarily work with children diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities and their families.

His specific interests include identifying the basic behavioral mechanisms that influence the occurrence and maintenance of problem behavior, and developing clinical methods that incorporate these mechanisms into the assessment and treatment of problem behaviors. He also has an interest in identification and manipulation of the variables that impact the integrity with which caregivers implement behavioral treatment recommendations in the natural environment.

Sherry Farrugia - Sherry Farrugia is the Chief Operating & Strategy Office for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center. In this duel role she works to build and sustain public-private partnerships, and spends half her time at Georgia Tech and the other half at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta where she manages the multi-million research portfolio. Farrugia has 25+ years’ experience in the Health IT field, working in data analytics, data visualization, and clinical and financial outcomes. She owned a health IT company she sold to McKesson HBOC, and was involved in several other successful startup companies.

Before coming to Georgia Tech, she owned a healthcare consulting company focusing on predictive health and risk mitigation in the area of chronic disease prediction, prevention, and management.

Farrugia is a member of: TAG Health Board, Gwinnett Tech HIT Advisory Board, an active member of the Bioscience HIT council at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Health Connect South Advisory Board, HIT Leadership Summit Innovation Committee, HIMSS, Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities Advisory Council, and Emory Board of Visitors. Ms. Farrugia received her B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Physics from Auburn University.

Michael FisherMike Fisher is the Director for the Global Center for Medical Innovation. Michael Fisher brings 17 years of medical product development experience to the team. Prior to joining GCMI, Fisher specialized in program management and product feasibility with two large multinational medical device companies, several start-up companies, and an academic clinical department. He has significant experience in urology, orthopedics, plastic and reconstructive surgery, and stem-cell/tissue engineering. In these roles, Fisher was involved in new technology acquisitions, platform product development, sustaining engineering efforts, project team management, tech transfer, and International manufacturing/supply chain. He developed and launched multiple products, achieved four successful 510(k) applications, and is a named inventor on more than 20 U.S. and international patents. Outside of GCMI, Fisher sits on academic advisory boards at Virginia Tech, lectures on engineering ethics, biomaterials and orthopedic product development, and continues to support the development of intellectual properties with his former employers. Fisher earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech with specialization in biomedical engineering.

Eric GoldsteinEric Goldstein is the Director of Pediatric Informatics at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Kris Rogers - Kris Rogers is the Director of Research and Academic Administration at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She is responsible for the administrative aspects of research including IRB, Sponsored Programs, Grants Administration and Compliance as well as oversight for all Clinical Research services and staff including the Pediatric Research Unit and research nurses and coordinators.

Sheri RussellSheri Russell is the Program and Operations Manager Manager for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center. She provides promotional, performance assessment and financial and accounting services in support of the Georgia Institute of Technology & Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Partnership. This encompasses a variety of activities related to the program's success including coordination of program operations, and interacting with: research, academic and administrative management and staff at Georgia Tech, Emory - Department of Pediatrics and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. She is the point of contact for Quick Wins submissions.

Bill Todd - Bill Todd is a professor of the practice in the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech and has experience as a venture capital investor in healthcare startups. His 40-year career has focused on healthcare in Atlanta.

 

Non-voting Team Members include:

Allana Cummings Allana Cummings is the Chief Information Officer at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

M.G. Finn, PhDM.G. Finn is the Chief Scientific Officer of the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center.

Shawna KhouriShawna Khouri is the Director of the GT/Emory Coulter Foundation program, and she is a Research Engineer II for the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Shawna works to identify and evaluate investment opportunities for the Coulter foundation, handles project management and coaching of funded projects. She is also involved in R&D of novel medical technologies.

John McMillen - John McMillen is the Senior Director of Supply Chain at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Jeremy Meller - Jeremy Meller is IT leader at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta with responsibility for Business Partnering & Governance, Clinical and Business Application groups, Project Management Office, Infrastructure and Operations, Health Information Management, and Resource Allocation.

Renee Watson, RNRenee Watson is the Senior Director of Quality and Patient Safety at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Chris Wilde - Chris Wilde is the Chief Transformation Officer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. He is in charge of transforming their system to a value based reimbursement model by interweaving elements of Quality, Financial, and Business Intelligence to demonstrate Children’s unique value as a freestanding pediatric health system.
 

Previously Funded Projects
 


 PI’s: Leanne West, George Raschbaum, Mark McJunkin, Bill Todd &  Brittiany Hailey

 

 
 Marcus Autism Center Web-Based "ePedia" Resource (AePedia)

 PI’s: Courtney Crooks, Keith Kline, Anna Valentine-Mitchell, Brian Lee &  Felissa Goldstein

 

 
 smartBrace: Wireless Scoliosis Brace 

 PI’s: Chris Hermann, Mark Holowka, Russell McCrory, Mike Schmitz &  Leigh Davis
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Talk with Me Baby

 PI’s: Jennifer Staple-Wax, Darcy Mahoney, Bryan Williams, Brenda  Fitzgerald & Comer Yates
 
 
 iPhone and Android Application for Colorectal Clinic

 PI’s: Kathleen Hoff, Megan Durham, Shane Owens & Mehul Raval
 
 
 
 MRI Training Device

 PI’s: Brad Fain, Sarah Schultz & Longchuan Li