Faculty Candidate Presentation: “Improving Diabetes Health Disparities through Novel Informatics Solutions”

Monday, January 28, 2019 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Event Location: 

University of Arizona College of Nursing, Room 470
1305 N. Martin Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85721

The University of Arizona College of Nursing presents:

TOPIC: “Improving Diabetes Health Disparities through Novel Informatics Solutions”
SPEAKER: Beth Heitkemper, PhD, RN | Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, N.Y.

Monday, Jan. 28, 2019
Noon-1 p.m.
College of Nursing, Room 470

Live-stream is available for this event. The ZOOM link will be active on the day of the presentation. Please click on this URL to join: https://uahs.zoom.us/j/430956151

Faculty Candidate Presentation

Dr. Elizabeth Heitkemper is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The goal of her research is to develop interventions that reduce the health disparities of medically underserved adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus. She is interested in understanding the factors that contribute to health engagement, improving access and approaches to diabetes self-management education and services through traditional and informatics-based solutions, and utilizing implementation and translational science to bring innovations into routine clinical practice.

In past work, she has examined the potential for a culturally tailored website to increase diabetes problem-solving in minority, low-income adults. Dr. Heitkemper is part of a team that created a voice-enabled application (app) to provide personalized nutrition planning, which was selected as one of the finalists for The Alexa Diabetes Challenge competition by Amazon Web Services, Inc. She also is working on a study utilizing a SMART design to examine engagement with multiple nutrition-based diabetes interventions in one mHealth app.

Dr. Heitkemper recently was elected as co-member-at-large in the Nursing Informatics Working Group for the American Medical Informatics Association. She has continued her clinical practice by working as a community health nurse, and has shown a commitment to excellence in teaching as a Columbia University Lead Teaching Fellow from 2016-17. She is pursuing funding opportunities to establish a program of research dedicated to health equity and the building of better futures through health promotion and illness self-management.

Event contact: Melinda Burns, gmfletch@email.arizona.edu