New faculty fellows to research inter-physician handoffs in emergency medicine, air flow in hospitals and surgical robotic technology

Beginning this semester, three new Clemson University School of Health Research faculty fellows will work within Prisma Health departments to study robotic technology in surgical environments, air quality control for airborne diseases and inter-physician handoffs in emergency medicine.  

As part of the CUSHR fellowship, Faculty Fellows produce research to improve the health outcomes with their clinical partners. Their research will also contribute to the rapidly expanding joint Clemson University and Prisma Health collaborative health research agenda through publications and presentations.

“The CUSHR Faculty Fellows program is a step forward in our commitment to health services research, and the University’s commitment to health innovation,” said Windsor Westbrook Sherrill, associate vice president for health research at Clemson University.

Meet the new faculty fellows and learn more about their research:

Jackie Cha
Jackie Cha, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, will be collaborating with Dr. Alfredo Carbonell in the Department of Surgery. Her fellowship will focus on applications of human factors in surgical environments. Specifically, they will be investigating robotic-assisted surgical technologies and wearables (e.g., exoskeletons) in the operating room that may be used to improve surgical teams’ performance and training for better worker health and patient care.

Sudeep Hegde
Sudeep Hegde, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, will be working with Dr. Ronald Pirallo in Emergency Medicine in Prisma Health to understand adaptive performance of clinicians and staff in the unit. A specific focus will be to study the relationship between inter-physician handoff strategies and overall Emergency Department (ED) performance metrics. The research will be based on a complex sociotechnical-systems perspective of the ED to generate insights for resilient performance across organizational levels.

Ehsan Mousavi

Ehsan Mousavi, endowed associate professor in the Nieri Department of Construction, Development and Planning, will be working with Dr. Robert Morgan and Mark Dease at Prisma Health to study how to control air contaminant spread. He will work with Morgan at the simulation center at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville to experiment with different designs to decrease airborne disease transmission through the air system and find the best solution to keep airborne illnesses from spreading through the air filtration system. Working with Dease at Prisma Health facilities, he will learn about the air system, what the hospital did during the pandemic, how effective it was, and lessons learned.