COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Oct. 1, 2015 –  Experts from academia, industry and government will gather at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 9-10, 2015 to present and discuss the latest findings and practices connected to information technology making healthcare more patient-centered, effective and cost-efficient.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Hillary Clinton on Tuesday aligned herself with a growing political movement: People who seek repeal of the Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac Tax," a surcharge on the most generous plans offered by employers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is working to harness fast-accumulating personal health data from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and wearable devices. But more than 90 percent of analysts’ efforts to capitalize on that data falls below the targeted efficiency level for the FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Biometrics in its Center for Device and Radiological Health, said Isaac Chang, who directs post-market surveillance for that office. “We have observations of signals and patterns,” he said. “But they’re one-off maps.”

UMD Smith Researchers to Join Experts to Address Harnessing mHealth, Social Media Data for Medical-Product Safety The Food and Drug Administration is looking to get, and stay, on the same page with producers and users of medical wearables. The FDA mission to regulate medical devices to protect consumers is challenged by the mobile health field continuously innovating new products.  

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Doctors have many concerns about online crowdsourced ratings, which are intended to make patients better-informed consumers of health care, but this is a big one: They worry that complainers will be the most outspoken contributors to rating sites, skewing scores and resulting in a kind of heckler's veto.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – May 14, 2015 - High School student teams from Montgomery, Howard and Prince George’s counties, plus students representing the University of Maryland and Prince George’s Community College, have been selected as finalists for the Maryland Innovate 4 Health Challenge.

Each year in May you can count on the sun shining, flowers blooming, finals and the annual CHIDS End of Semester Get-Together! CHIDS held its end of semester get-together on May 6th, to welcome new students and to say goodbye to outgoing students. At this gathering, students shared their research and CHIDS director, Professor Ritu Agarwal, recognized outstanding student and faculty achievements. She also discussed center goals for the coming year. This event marks the end of the semester before finals. 

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (March 26, 2015) — Working professionals with an interest in the Washington, D.C., region have a new source for bite-sized business insights, delivered weekly to their inboxes from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Smith Brain Trust, published every Thursday, will provide commentary on the latest mergers, marketing campaigns, policy debates, investment news and business research — drawing upon the broad knowledge of the school’s faculty.

The Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business will partner with Columbia, Md.-based Vheda Health to develop health IT solutions for chronic illnesses, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program.

Ritu's research influences the shift to electronic medial records.