Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs
Vol. 7, Issue 4

The Pulse of UI Health is an e-newsletter that provides news, celebrations and recognitions from across the university's academic health enterprise. To submit content or learn more please email vcha@uic.edu.

This year we have celebrated many accomplishments throughout our vibrant academic, research and clinical enterprise. As we look ahead to the new year, we anticipate a fresh season of opportunities and collaborations to enhance the well-being of our communities across Illinois and beyond. I thank each of you for being a part of the UI Health family and for contributing to excellent outcomes for our patients, students and neighbors. May the new year bring to us all continued success and health.

Robert Barish, MD, MBA 
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs

Left photo: UIC Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Robert Barish (left) and Mile Square Board President Carl Malone (right) presented Mr. Taylor (center) with an honorary captain’s chair, in recognition of his leadership at MSHC. Right photo: incoming Executive Director Karriem Watson.

The UIC and Mile Square Health Center community came together on October 9, 2024, along with friends and supporters from around the state to celebrate the retirement of Mr. Henry Taylor, executive director of the Mile Square Health Center clinics. After 28 years of leadership making Mile Square among the most notable Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) networks in the nation, Mr. Taylor leaves an extraordinary legacy of contributions towards health equity across the cities of Chicago, Cicero and Rockford through his leadership of the 11 Mile Square locations. See photos of the celebration and a video about Mr. Taylor’s legacy.

On December 1, 2024, Karriem Watson, DHSc, MS, MPH, assumed the role of executive director of Mile Square. Dr. Watson is no stranger to UIC or Chicago, having previously spent over 15 years as a community-engaged research scientist with the Mile Square Health Center network in the Chicagoland area. Watson comes from immediate experience as the Chief Engagement Officer for the All of Us Research Program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this national role, he led the program’s efforts to foster relationships with participants, communities, researchers and providers across the United States to help build one of the largest, most diverse health databases of its kind. Read more about his appointment as executive director.

UIC faculty members Mary Khetani, Tanvi Bhatt, Andrew Boyd and Samantha Bond are investigators on a new AI project. Each are faculty at the College of Applied Health Sciences.

UIC is co-lead on an innovative, interdisciplinary project that will use artificial intelligence to create holistic datasets that could transform the delivery health care and improve patient outcomes. With $10 million funding from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the project is a collaboration between UIC, University of Iowa, University of Missouri, Loyola University, Microsoft and Tackle AI. 

The aim of the project is to integrate health data from a broader range of health professionals, including nurses, physical and occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists, adding it to data collected from physician visits and lab results. “Other professions see patients more frequently and provide very high-fidelity data that gets closer to the reality of the patient, instead of just the brief snapshots in time that you get from data documented by physicians,” said Andrew Boyd, UIC associate vice chancellor for research and chief research information officer, and a principal investigator on the project. He observed that UIC has a rich diversity of expertise across disciplines, “so we can pull everyone together, including our collaborating institutions, and try to transform the way we look at health care data.” 

Other UIC faculty involved in the project are Professor Barbara Di Eugenio and Associate Professor Natalie Parde (computer science), Clinical Professor Miiri Kotche (biomedical engineering), and Associate Professor David Chestek (clinical emergency medicine).

Read More about the Health Data Project

Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood is one of many where climate change may impact health.

Under a $4 million, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to participate in the Climate Change and Health Initiative, UIC's new Center for Climate and Health Equity will gather experts from public health, medicine, engineering, urban planning and biological sciences to measure health impacts from climate change and test interventions to minimize the consequences of climate change on humans, especially in marginalized and under-resourced communities.

In addition to its interdisciplinary approach, center director Dr. Kristen Malecki says that what makes the center unique is "its emphasis on finding solutions and working with community partners. We have a lot of communities across Chicago that see environmental justice issues as a problem, but they’re looking for the tools and the data and the knowledge to take that information and turn it into action.”

Read More about the Climate Center

Dr. Monica Mahajan, UIC assistant professor of clinical medicine and specialist in the UI Health Division of Geriatrics.

Dr. Monica Mahajan is serving as medical director at the new Center for Better Aging (CBA), which opened in July of 2024 in the St. Bernard Hospital Ambulatory Care Center on Chicago's South Side. With expert guidance from UI Health, CBA has developed a patient-centered approach to addressing the complex care needs of adults over the age of fifty.

Care providers from the UI Health network operate on-site at CBA and contribute to delivering primary care, chronic disease management, physical therapy, nutrition counseling, fall prevention, wellness coaching and more. Additionally, access to UI Health specialists and facilities ensures that patients can benefit from the expertise of professionals specializing in a wide range of medical conditions.

Read More about the CBA

Dr. Tanvi Bhatt, director of the Cognitive, Motor and Balance Rehabilitation Laboratory and co-director of the Clinical Gait and Motion Analysis Laboratory.

Dr. Tanvi Bhatt, professor of physical therapy at the College of Applied Health Sciences, has been awarded two grants totaling over $4.5 million for research into functional balance intervention and fall prevention. A grant from the U.S. Department of Defense will support a three-year study on functional balance interventions for people with multiple sclerosis, a condition that affects approximately one million adults in the U.S. Bhatt’s study will explore how functional balance training might treat cognitive impairments in multiple sclerosis patients.

A second grant from the National Institute on Aging will support a five-year study on the potential of task-specific balance training to reduce falls in aging adults. The project is a renewal of her previous NIA-funded clinical trial, to investigate the effects of perturbation training on fall risk among older adults. Perturbation training simulates situations in which someone may trip or slip while walking on a specially designed overground walkway. The goal of the study is to increase the accessibility of effective fall prevention training. 

Read More about This Research

The Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center (MATEC) central office staff.

Now in its fourth decade, the Midwest AIDS Training + Education Center (MATEC), based in the College of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, has been on the front lines of fighting the AIDS epidemic by training thousands of health care workers to treat people with HIV and AIDS and reduce new diagnoses. The center recently received a $19 million five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration HIV/AIDS Bureau to continue its work of HIV testing, prevention through education and drugs such as PrEP, and connecting newly diagnosed patients to comprehensive care. 

"We’re building a new workforce of people who identify as HIV providers, who go on to become HIV medical directors or lead the opening of LGBTQ clinics,” said Amanda Wilkins, executive director of the center. “Even if they don’t go on to become HIV providers, our training helps reduce stigma and support professionals to be advocates for embedding HIV screening and prevention into their practices."

Read More about MATEC and the Grant

Healthy pancreatic cells producing insulin.

Researchers have developed a cutting-edge treatment for type 1 diabetes. The new treatment, named Lantidra, was developed through research at UIC and clinical trials conducted at UI Health, and is the only treatment currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Lantidra is available only at UI Health, and involves pancreatic islet cell transplantation. According to Dr. Enrico Benedetti, head of surgery at UI Health and who was instrumental in developing the treatment, most patients in the clinical trial no longer required insulin one year after their transplant.

Read More about the New Treatment

Pediatric dental care delivered by the College of Dentistry.

The NIH recently awarded $3.9 million for a collaboration between researchers at UIC and DePaul. Dr. Helen Lee, associate professor in the department of anesthesiology at UIC, and Dr. Joanna Buscemi of DePaul will lead a trial of a new intervention called PROTECT, which deploys community health workers to empower families in making positive behavioral changes with their child after oral surgery. The two main goals of PROTECT are to increase the frequency of adult-assisted tooth brushing and reduce a child’s sugar intake.

Read More about PROTECT

Eight graduates of the Mile Square Dental Assistant program posing with UIC leadership and Mile Square staff at the Auburn Gresham Healthy Lifestyle Hub.

The Mile Square Health Center recently announced the approval of a new 12-month dental residency program, Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD), through a Teaching Health Center grant awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). This program will provide additional training to dentists in treating patients with complex medical needs, while enhancing care for underserved communities. The AEGD program will be one of only two in Illinois, addressing a critical gap in advanced dental education. The AEGD program focuses on advanced clinical dental training in all areas of general dentistry. Residents will rotate through various Mile Square sites, gaining hands-on experience and mentorship. Mile Square is also collaborating with the UIC College of Dentistry to ensure the program's accreditation.

In related news, this past October the Dental Assistant Program at Mile Square graduated its sixth cohort of eight dental assistants, bringing the total number of graduates to 40 since the program began. The current cohort also consists of eight students who are expected to graduate in February 2025. Typically, there are over 200 applicants for the eight available positions in each cohort. The program is cost-free to the students except for the cost of textbooks and their uniform.

Read More about the Dental Assistant Program

A nursing instructor with students at the UIC Rockford campus.

The College of Nursing Rockford has launched a master of science in nursing program aimed at students who already have a bachelor’s degree in another subject and wish to change careers to become nurses. The program prepares non-nurses to sit for the registered nurse licensure exam, then pursue a career as advanced generalist nurses who can act as care coordinators for a group of patients while providing direct care in complex cases. 

The addition of the master’s degree program fills a gap for the Rockford area, which lacks an educational option for career changers seeking a path into the nursing profession. “This is really a great opportunity for people in the Rockford area to have access to this program because our local hospitals are in great need of nurses, especially in the rural areas,” said Laura Monahan, Rockford campus director for nursing. 

Read More about the new MS Program

UIC received $485.5 million in research funding during the 2024 fiscal year, marking a 26% increase in UIC research funding over the last five years. The College of Medicine led all UIC colleges with $196.5 million in total funding, and the university received $205.4 million from the National Institutes of Health. 

“UIC continues to lead in health sciences research while also expanding our initiatives in engineering, physical sciences and the humanities,” said Vice Chancellor for Research Joanna Groden. “These broad research strengths position UIC to conduct the interdisciplinary, collaborative explorations needed to address today’s pressing scientific and societal challenges.”  

The state-of-the-art facility – one of 13 cores within the UIC Research Resources Center – helps researchers investigate the chemical composition and structure of molecules, providing deep insights into biological processes and enabling advances in health sciences.

Chrisomalis brings years of experience in academic research administration and finance to oversee the Office of Sponsored Programs Post-Award team, which is responsible for the administration and expenditure of sponsored projects. Learn more about Angelo Chrisomalis.

High school student Jaden Blankenship, who was part of the Cancer Health Equity Summer Scholars (CHESS) program at the University of Illinois Cancer Center, was featured on Chicago’s WGN News for his research on triple negative breast cancer.

Learn More about Jaden Blankenship

Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Robert Barish was honored with an Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement from his alma mater University of New Hampshire. 

Dr. Robert Barish and Dr. Mark Rosenblatt, CEO of the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics, were named by Crain’s Chicago Business as Notable Leaders in Health Care.  

Dr. Carlos Crespo, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences, was named by Crain’s Chicago Business among Notable Latino Leaders, and was selected for the sixth cohort of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ Academia de Liderazgo (Leadership Academy). 

The University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford was awarded the 2024 Excelsior Award by The Community Foundation of Northern Illinois in recognition of outstanding community service.

Dr. Sodabeh Etminan, dental director for Mile Square Health Center, is among 205 national leaders selected to join the 2024-25 Obama Foundation USA Leaders program.  

Laurence Appel, chief financial officer at the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics, was named among Beckers 2024 Academic Medical Center CFOs to Know. 

All Mile Square Health Center sites have received continued Patient-Centered Medical Home recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

Dr. Scott L. Tomar, professor and associate dean for prevention and public health sciences at the College of Dentistry, received the John W. Knutson Distinguished Service Award from the American Public Health Association’s Oral Health Section.

Dr. Denise D. Hale, clinical assistant professor in the College of Dentistry, was elected as 2025 president of the Chicago Dental Society.

UIC faculty and UI Health practitioners were featured in the prestigious journal Nature: 

Several health sciences faculty were invested with named professorships:

Dr. Mark Rosenblatt, CEO of the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics, was interviewed by Beckers Hospital Review about how a CEO handles data overload.   

Bishan Nandy, director of hospital administration at the hospital & clinics, wrote an article for the publication HIT Consultant about how AI is transforming hospitals. 

Kendall Jones, building service supervisor at the at the hospital & clinics, was interviewed by the publication Cleaning & Maintenance Management. 

College of Medicine faculty Drs. Sally Weinstein, Weiyang Xie and Jenna Duffecy wrote an op-ed in Crain's Chicago Business about protecting the mental well-being of our future health care workforce. 

Dr. Stephanie Crawford of the College of Pharmacy wrote an article for the publication Pharmacy Times about health equity, mentorship and the expanding role of pharmacists. 

Timotheus Gordon, Jr., visiting research associate at the College of Applied Health Sciences, received the 2024 Self Advocate Award from the Autism Allies Appreciation Coalition.

The Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion (CPHP), a program with the UIC Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships, has launched their new Healthier Habits Podcast. With episodes published every other Wednesday, the podcast interviews community leaders and organizations that are actively working to improve our communities.

Listen and Subscribe to the Podcast

January 15 – Hematologic Malignancies - Update from ASH (University of Illinois Cancer Center Winter CME Series) 

January 21 – Top 10 Reasons for Modifications from the IRB (Center for Clinical and Translational Science) 

January 22 – Women and GU Cancers (University of Illinois Cancer Center Winter CME Series) 

January 24 – Investigator Responsibilities for INDs (Center for Clinical and Translational Science)

January 24 – University of Illinois College of Medicine Annual Research Forum  

January 27 – Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series: Jack Szostak, PhD (College of Medicine) 

January 29 – Emerging Paradigms in the Management of Oncology Patients (University of Illinois Cancer Center Winter CME Series) 

January 29 & 30 – Financial Management: Pre-Award (Center for Clinical and Translational Science) 

March 6 – UI Health Distinguished Scholar Series (DSS): Ighovwerha Ofotoku, MD, MSC Associate Dean, Research Development and Grady Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine – details and registration to come; sign up to receive email notifications about the Distinguished Scholar Series

March 14 – 5th Annual Frugal Innovations in Global Health Conference (School of Public Health) 

The School of Public Health's COIP project has been spotlighted in UIC Stories: From Addiction to Advocacy. The article describes how COIP employs local leaders to help people who use drugs through street outreach, mobile health care services, needle exchange and more.

Read the COIP Coverage at UIC Stories

As of December, 2024, UI Health has 6,898 patients on active clinical studies, approximately 80% of whom bring representation for groups historically underrepresented in clinical research. Since going live with Epic in 2020, UI Health has had a total of 17,927 patients associated with a study.

In fiscal year 2024, there were a total of 158,171 patient visits to the 11 Mile Square Health Center sites in Chicago, Cicero and Rockford, including four school-based health centers in Chicago.

The Hospital & Clinics employs 7,188 people who provide care to our patients, including 840 practicing faculty members of the College of Medicine’s University of Illinois Physicians Group.

UIC Office of The Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs
University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System

914 South Wood Street, MCA (MC 973)
Phone: (312) 355-5473 | Email: VCHA@uic.edu

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