Health Information Technology Commons^™

May 2026, Swosu Rural Health Center

RURAL ROCKS

Rural Rocks

Helping to build a better community by building each part of Rural Health Services

As we look ahead to an exciting summer, preparations are well underway for the transition into the new Jerry and Margaret Hodge Pharmacy & Rural Health Center. This state-of-the-art facility will serve as a hub for innovation, education, and expanded access to care across rural Oklahoma. Within the Jerry and Margaret Hodge Building will be the College of Pharmacy, the Rural Health Department, the Center for Health and Well being, as well as the Doctorate of Community Health Program. The Custer County Health …

Towards Dementia-Inclusive Digital Text-Based Health Information: A Multi-Method Investigation Of Cognitive And Affective Accessibility, Margi Engineer

All Dissertations

This dissertation examines the accessibility, readability, emotional tone, and trustworthiness of digital, text‑based dementia information and investigates how older adults with and without dementia cognitively and affectively engage with such content. It further explores the potential of generative AI to improve dementia information delivery through the development of a domain‑specific retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) large language model (LLM) chatbot designed to deliver accessible, stigma‑free information. The dissertation comprises four studies using complementary quantitative and qualitative methods. Study I conducts a large‑scale content analysis of 300 medical articles, 35 websites, and 50 blogs, applying readability metrics, LIWC‑based linguistic and sentiment analysis, and …

Current Landscape Of Mental Health Conversational Agents From A Trauma-Informed Care Lens: Scoping Review., Faye Kollig, Kira Voelker, Emily Ryan, Rachel Pfafman, Fayika Farhat Nova

Health Services and Informatics Research

BACKGROUND: Conversational agents (CAs) are increasingly used in mental health care to enhance access and engagement. However, their safe, ethical, and user-sensitive design remains a challenge. Despite growing attention to trauma-informed approaches in human-computer interaction, there is limited work on how the trauma-informed care (TIC) framework could be applied in the design of mental health CAs and no comprehensive synthesis to date.

OBJECTIVE: Guided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's TIC framework, this scoping review explored how TIC principles (safety; trustworthiness and transparency; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice, and choice; peer support; and cultural, historical, and gender …

The Current Landscape Of Remote Patient Monitoring Regarding Diabetes Mellitus And Hypoglycemia: Protocol For A Scoping Review, Mathew J. Stephen, Baylor Akhavan, Melinda B. Chu, Kavita Batra, Roberto Sagaribay

Department of Medical Education Faculty Research

Background: Diabetes mellitus is characterized by impaired glucose regulation, predisposing patients to both hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, particularly frequent in insulin-treated individuals, remains a serious but underrecognized complication. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) technologies, such as continuous glucose monitors, smartphone apps, and hybrid closed-loop systems with remote monitoring capabilities, have emerged as promising tools to improve glycemic control and prevent hypoglycemia in nonclinical settings. Evidence examining the use of RPM technologies has expanded rapidly; however, the scope, characteristics, and reported outcomes of these interventions remain fragmented across modalities and settings. Objective: This scoping review aims to systematically map and describe the …

Drug Risk Knowledge Discovery For Western Medicines Based On Knowledge Graph Link Prediction, Jianxiang Wei, Ma Hengyuan Ma, Yuehong Sun, Wenwen Du, Letian Hu

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance] The risk information contained in drug instructions is usually incomplete, and some new adverse reactions can only be discovered in actual clinical use. This paper proposes an information organization and knowledge discovery method for pharmacovigilance, in order to timely and accurately identify missing risk knowledge in drug instructions. [Method/process] Drug instructions of 8 152 Western medicines are collected as the research data; On the basis of ontology construction, data annotation, and model training, the UIE model is used to jointly extract entity and relationship triplets from the research data; A new knowledge graph link prediction method CompGCN-RotatE, is proposed, …

Research On Temporal Knowledge Graph Completion Method For Emergent Events Based On Bigru And Graph Contrastive Learning, Peng Wu, Zhenyu Lu, Xuechen Zhang

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance] During emergencies, social media short texts contain critical information but are heavily interfered with by noise. Traditional static knowledge graph completion techniques struggle to effectively address their dynamic evolution and data sparsity issues, making it imperative to introduce temporal modeling methods. [Method/process] This study proposes a dynamic completion framework that combines the temporal feature capture capability of Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Units (BiGRU) with the noise-resistant representation learning advantages of Graph Contrastive Learning (GCL). At the completion level, the ConBiTE method is introduced, which captures temporal dependencies through self-attention mechanisms and BiGRU, while leveraging GCL to enhance the completion of …

How Digital News Impacts Health Knowledge And Decisions, Ellya Asatryan

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

This literature review examines how digital news and online health information (OHI) influence health knowledge and decision-making. This review focuses specifically on young adults, who increasingly rely on digital platforms for health information. Evidence indicates that OHI can support informed health decisions, such as lifestyle changes and self-care, particularly when individuals possess higher digital health literacy. However, the rise of social media, influencer marketing, and misinformation complicates these effects, making critical evaluation skills essential. Trust in digital health news is mediated by source credibility, exposure to misinformation, and individuals’ media and health literacy levels. Lower health literacy is associated with …

Handgrip Strength, Handgrip Endurance And Bmi: A Comprehensive Approach To Health Assessment Among The General Population Of Madikeri, Dr Asha S. Das, Dr Ravikiran Kisan, Dr Suhas Y. Shirur, Dr Narasimha Rai K, Dr Sanjay Bhagoji

Digital Journal of Clinical Medicine

Introduction: Being physically fit is essential for lowering the risk of illness and enhancing longevity. While Body Mass Index (BMI) is frequently used to evaluate body composition, Hand Grip Strength (HGS) and Hand Grip Endurance (HGE) are important indicators of general well-being. Goal: To assess BMI, HGS, and HGE and ascertain how they correlate in a selected group of subjects. Methods: Fifty participants between the ages of 20 and 40 years participated in a comparative cross-sectional study at the Department of Physiology, Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences, Madikeri. Participants were divided into three BMI groups after anthropometric measurements were taken. …

Coordinated Telehealth For People With Parkinson’S Disease: A Qualitative Comparison Of Providers’ And Patients’ Experiences, Erin J. Bush, Reshmi L. Singh, Josephine Cox, Merrill R. Landers, Annalisa V. Piccorelli

The Qualitative Report

Telehealth increases access to allied healthcare in rural areas. People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) need improved access to health care, and from a patient-centered perspective, the coordination of their healthcare should be a priority. Four speech-language pathologists, two physical therapists, two pharmacists, and two study coordinators provided a coordinated allied healthcare intervention for people with PD in rural Wyoming and Nevada. Both the providers of the intervention, as well as the participants who received it, were interviewed about their experiences with the eight-week intervention and asked about aspects that were successful or unsuccessful. Through a naturalistic paradigm using a qualitative …

From Data To Action: Enhancing Public Health Communication & Information Dissemination, Ryan Hayden, Devon Donovan

Health Sciences Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tom: Treatment Outcome Monitor - A Web-Based Tool Designed Specifically For Clinics With Limited Resources, Saurabh Shashikumar Nair, Alba Kihn Alarcon, Maritza Elodia Cupil Barrios, Milton Estuardo Ixquiac Cabrera, Mynor Villeda, Joseph Steyn, Anneray Richards, Ricardo Ruggeri, Loida Orozco, Angel Velarde, Indranil Mallick, Graeme Lazarus, Christoph Trauernicht, Vicky De Falla, Tim Edwards, Johnny Inthaphone, Adenike Olanrewaju, Laurence E. Court, Joshua Niedzielski

Advances in Cancer Education and Quality Improvement

Background: Although three-fourths of cancer deaths are expected to occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by 2030, most cancer research still comes from high-income countries. One barrier to cancer research in LMICs is lack of infrastructure for systematic data collection, including electronic medical record systems. We developed Treatment Outcome Monitor (TOM), a cloud-based tool for tracking cancer patient outcomes, designed specifically for resource-limited settings.

Methods: TOM was developed through iterative design cycles with continuous feedback from health care providers from across the world. We focused on creating a simple, web-based solution that addresses real-world challenges in resource-limited …

A Backend Database Architecture For Persistent Epilepsy Classification Records, Attiksh A. Panda, Deep Desai, Artem Zabarov, Katrina D. Prantzalos, Satya S. Sahoo, Shuai Xu

Student Scholarship

Epilepsy affects over five million people globally each year, yet consistent clinical diagnosis remains a persistent challenge due to the lack of standardized classification workflows across medical institutions. The Four-Dimensional Epilepsy Classification (4D-EC) framework, developed by Lüders et al., provides a comprehensive structure for characterizing paroxysmal events across four dimensions: seizure semiology, epileptogenic zone, etiology, and comorbidities. Despite its clinical and educational value, no dedicated informatics platform existed to support its routine use until recently, limiting widespread adoption among clinicians and trainees. This project addresses that gap by implementing a full-stack web application that operationalizes the 4D-EC framework for clinical …

Familybloom: Examining Ecologies Of Collaboration In Family-Centered Health Tracking, Lucas M. Silva, Aehong Min, Evropi Stefanidi, Franceli L. Cibrian, Jesus A. Beltran, Cassie Zeiler, Sabrina E. B. Schuck, Kimberley D. Lakes, Gillian R. Hayes, Daniel A. Epstein

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Family health informatics tools can help support well-being with shared data tracking. Prior work typically focused on shared data review, but often in specific moments, like bedtime, or centered on caregiving of children or elderly members. To investigate how tracking can support mutual health collaboration between family members pervasively across daily contexts, we designed and deployed FamilyBloom, a glanceable smartwatch and home display system for mood and goal tracking. Twelve families with both neurotypical and ADHD members used FamilyBloom for three months on average. Our findings reveal how family-centered tracking created collaboration opportunities and tensions across multiple ecological systems: individual …

Assessing Current Telehealth Mobile Applications In The United States: Accessibility, Privacy, And Care Delivery, Rosemary K. Frugé

Honors Theses

Telehealth has improved patient access by reducing barriers to convenient, cost-effective, and quality health care. Telehealth mobile applications allow individuals to remotely access services through smartphone-based platforms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate leading telehealth applications available in the United States, analyzing key factors that influence platform selection, including cost, prescribing and diagnostic capabilities, user feedback, and data privacy practices. Applications were identified through keyword-based searches of major app stores using the term “telehealth,” and each app was systematically evaluated using predefined criteria. Findings highlight variability across platforms in pricing transparency, service offerings, and privacy disclosures, despite generally …

Digital Touchpoints: Investigating Contact Page Accessibility And Visual Authenticity Within Medical Tourism Health Websites, Alicia Mason, Elizabeth Spencer, Kristen Livingston, Treyton Meyers, Sakshi Bhati, Himika Akram

Faculty Submissions

This study examines two critical digital touchpoints on medical tourism provider (MTP) websites: (1) the accessibility of contact pages which often function as entry points for inquiries, scheduling, and pre-travel coordination, and (2) the authenticity of visual imagery used to shape expectations about care environments, personnel, and technological capacity. A sample of 105 MTPs across all six World Health Organization regions were analyzed using quantitative web accessibility testing and qualitative visual analysis. Results indicate pervasive accessibility errors on contact-page touchpoints and extensive reliance on inauthentic imagery to depict patients, providers, and medical technologies. Together, these practices may distort user expectations …

Bio-Cybersecurity: Securing The Healthcare Industry, Amanda D. Coleman

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Bio-cybersecurity refers to the aspect of cybersecurity that applies to the biological sciences and the protection of digital biomedical information. Today’s healthcare industry has evolved with the enhancement of internet and biomedical technology. While hospitals and private medical providers remain compliant with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) through traditional means of securing documented patient information, the emergence of beneficial internet-based healthcare services like virtual appointments and digital patient records requires new policies and healthcare cybersecurity frameworks to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access. This paper examines the role of cybersecurity in healthcare, the vulnerabilities that exist and …

Redesigning A Fitness App Interface For Physiological Constrained Users*, Joseph E. Manzanillo

Campus Research Month

As fitness tracking converges with medical monitoring, inclusive design becomes a matter of health equity. This research utilizes a Polar Beat redesign to address exclusionary "sporty" aesthetics that can exclude 300 million colorblind users. Based in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the study implements WCAG AA standards and color-blind-verified filters to mitigate data loss during Situational Induced Impairment (SIID), when high-intensity exercise compromises cognitive and visual processing. By optimizing user journeys for Paralympic and geriatric archetypes, this work demonstrates that accessibility is the essential bridge transitioning mobile fitness apps into viable, inclusive instruments for clinical medical use.

Non-Diabetic Kidney Disease In A Patient With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Diagnostic Challenge, Nikhil R, Mahabaleshwar Mamadapur , Assistant Professor, Harshwardhan S Patil

Digital Journal of Clinical Medicine

Background: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the most common cause of end-stage renal disease. However, non-diabetic kidney disease (NDKD) can coexist or mimic DKD, leading to misdiagnosis. Case Presentation: A 46-year-old female with type 2 diabetes presented with vomiting and abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed non-blanching erythematous papules on both lower limbs. Investigations showed uncontrolled diabetes, metabolic acidosis, and active urinary sediment. Absence of diabetic retinopathy prompted renal biopsy, which revealed immune-complex–mediated glomerulonephritis with small-vessel vasculitis. Diagnosis: Immune-complex–mediated glomerulonephritis with small-vessel vasculitis, not consistent with diabetic nephropathy. Management: Supportive care and immunosuppressive therapy were initiated with improvement in renal function. …

April 2026, Swosu Rural Health Center

RURAL ROCKS

• Oklahoma Rural Health Transformation Program
• State Immunization Websites
• Tracking Measles Cases in the U.S.
• FDA to Address Unused Opioids in American Homes
• Immune cells may underlie sex differences in chronic pain
• STRESS AWARENESS MONTH

April 2026, Swosu Bulldog Wellness Committee

SWOSU BULLDOG WELLNESS

• Stress Awareness Month
• Stress Management Tips for Bulldogs
• Bulldog Resources