The project addresses specific health challenges of patients with diabetic foot ulcers and focuses on two key challenges: automatically analyzing wound healing progress of patients with diabetic foot ulcers, and using technology to motivate these patients to better care for their wounds and their diabetes. The proposed smart phone application requires the development of image analysis algorithms and is patient-centered and aims to improve patient health and wellbeing in a patient population that is experiencing severe and expensive health problems.
In the performance of this work, the project extends the medical education of students to include how state-of-the-art computing technologies can assist healing. This research is of societal importance and provides technology-enabled care for patients with advanced problems like diabetic foot ulcers. Furthermore, it improves the quality of lives and reduces health care costs. Finally, the cross-disciplinary research team broadly disseminates results to multiple disciplines and is quite diverse. The team's diversity and the societal value of a health care application are helpful in recruiting a diverse group of students.
