Designing Human Performance: Behind the Science That Drives Innovation
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- A partnership between the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing and the UHealth Sports Medicine Institute seeks to democratize technologies to maximize human performance.
- The collaboration weds the IDSC’s data expertise with sports medicine physicans who have worked with more than 50 Olympians and 21 national championship teams.
- Researchers will try to create new technologies that analyze how humans move and recover.
Revolutionary advancements in technology, from wearable devices that monitor every step they take to artificial intelligence systems that guide their rehabilitation after injuries, have changed the medical treatment of college and professional athletes.
Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine believe that these technologies should not be reserved for elite athletes. They should be available to everyone, from those diagnosed with a disease or recovering from a surgery to individuals seeking better health and fitness.
A new partnership between the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) and the UHealth Sports Medicine Institute was founded on the principle of democratizing and enhancing technologies to maximize human performance.
“Professional teams spend millions of dollars for these kinds of things,” said IDSC Director Nick Tsinoremas, Ph.D. “We want it to be available to people who are middle-aged and need a knee replacement or elderly people who need to be more active.”
Human Performance Center
Dr. Tsinoremas developed the idea with Lee Kaplan, M.D., a UHealth orthopedic surgeon who serves as the chief of the UHealth Sports Medicine Institute and medical director for the Miami Hurricanes sports teams. The partnership they developed is currently called “Design Thinking for Human Performance.” Drs. Tsinoremas and Kaplan envision it becoming a full center at UM that develops its own degree programs, hires its own staff and patents its products to be sold on the open market.
The partnership will bring together the expertise of the Miller School’s Division of Sports Medicine, which has decades of experience treating more than 50 Olympians and 21 national championship teams, and IDSC, which has two supercomputers and dozens of experts trained in data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
To illustrate the power of that combination, Dr. Kaplan gave the example of a recent meeting he had with Dr. Tsinoremas. It can take Dr. Kaplan’s sports medicine researchers a month to compare one patient’s injury diagnosis to a broad range of other patients who’ve suffered similar injuries. Dr. Tsinoremas ran the numbers using his systems at IDSC.
“He had the information in 90 seconds,” said Dr. Kaplan, also professor of orthopaedics, biomedical engineering and kinesiology and sports sciences at the Miller School and the Petra and Stephen Levin Endowed Chair in Sports Medicine. “In medicine, we’re not moving as quickly as technology, so the ability to intersect the two is incredibly exciting.”
Drs. Tsinoremas and Kaplan will serve on the advisory board of the new program. Day-to-day operations will be run by two co-directors. Michael Rizzo, M.D., a UHealth orthopedic surgeon who minored in computer science at Harvard University, will be the director of design thinking, data and computation in sports medicine. Kim Grinfeder, an interactive media professor who heads IDSC’s Human Centered Design and Computing unit, will be the director of digital innovation in computer science. The program will focus on three core concepts: technological innovation, education and commercialization.
Developing New Technologies
Most people are familiar with wearable Internet-enabled devices that measure a person’s heart rate, sleeping patterns and other basic metrics. But new technologies allow researchers to use the cameras, accelerometers and gyroscopes on smartphones to capture far more information. Researchers have been using those tools to track a patient’s progress in physical therapy, analyze how they walk to ensure they’re not favoring one leg or the other and make countless other measurements that can help athletes and non-athletes alike.
Researchers in the new program will try to bring those worlds together to create technologies that analyze how humans move and recover. Then they can identify trends, develop technologies to address those issues and create personalized treatment plans for individuals.
“If you’re able to move and exercise and walk and cycle, you’re decreasing your body mass index, you’re decreasing your cardiac risk, you’re decreasing your diabetes risk. And your joints work better if you’re using them,” Dr. Kaplan said. “So our thought process was, ‘If we can apply current technologies and develop new ones toward people maximizing their own bodies, their own physical performance, we can contribute to making them healthier.’”
New Academic Paths
Plans for the educational component of the program, which will need approval from the University of Miami Faculty Senate, will include:
• Undergraduate and graduate courses that explore the intersection of sports medicine and new technologies
• Research fellowships focused on emerging sports medicine technologies
• A dual-degree MD/MS program that includes a medical degree and a master’s degree in computer science with a focus on sports medicine technology
That coursework will be augmented by group meetings to exchange ideas, collaborative research days where experts in different departments work on the science together and hackathons to test and explore new approaches.
“There’s really a science behind innovation,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Some people think there’s just this spark of light and you come up with these ideas and patents, but there’s a science behind the process of vetting ideas, piloting ideas, and the management process, and we have an incredible base here at the university of people with such great skills.”
Achieving Commercial Viability
Dr. Tsinoremas will also push the sports medicine program beyond campus and commercialize its products. IDSC has a history of collaborating with private industry so UM researchers and the university itself can patent and profit from the tools being developed.
IDSC scientists have already created spinoff businesses in other fields. Dr. Tsinoremas said the sports medicine partnership is well-positioned to follow suit, given the global interest in technologies to improve one’s health. Dr. Tsinoremas said the challenge will be finding the balance between affordable technologies that most people can benefit from and advanced technologies that would help but remain unaffordable to most.
“If it’s too crude, it doesn’t help,” he said. “If it’s too detailed, it may be too expensive, computationally. Where do you draw the line?”
As the program starts coming together, Dr. Kaplan said he’s excited about the possibilities for educating new researchers and commercializing their products. But he’s most excited about the chance to improve the well-being of the biggest pool of patients possible by allowing them to take their health care into their own hands.
“As physicians, why should I tell you what your life expectancy will be or why should I tell you you can’t run a marathon at 60 when there is that opportunity,” he said. “I don’t think blue sky. I think there are tangible opportunities.”
Tags: Department of Orthopaedics, Dr. Lee Kaplan, sports medicine, Sports Medicine Institute