Department(s):
Marketing CommunicationsPracticePoint, WPI’s membership-based facility for healthcare research, development and testing, has launched an advisory board to ensure that it continues to provide the resources needed for collaboration among faculty researchers, industry scientists and engineers, clinicians, and students. The board members are leaders in the medical technology and healthcare industry, coming from global corporations such as Boston Scientific and Takeda, as well as local powerhouses such as UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Hospital.
With the rapid advances in healthcare technology and patient-care delivery, PracticePoint must continuously evaluate and update its capabilities so it can readily assist in creating the next generation of those technologies and systems. This is the critical role that the advisory board will play.
“PracticePoint's unique range of facilities, such as our state-of-the-art MRI machine and fully equipped operating suite, create stimulating and productive relationships between our faculty and our corporate partners,” said John Orr, director of PracticePoint.
At the facility’s opening in 2020, Ron Lancaster, former director of corporate research at Boston Scientific—which employs more than 100 WPI alumni in its corporate offices—predicted a unique benefit of PracticePoint by describing the physical challenges facing clinical endoscopists. They not only have to wear heavy lead aprons all day to protect from radiation exposure, but they also have to shift patients, bend, twist, and reach when conducting clinical procedures. “Do it for a day, and you get tired. Do it for years, and you get injured,” Lancaster said. With PracticePoint, he noted, Boston Scientific would be able to set up an operating room with equipment and observe how endoscopists work and move, allowing device manufacturers to understand the physical demands on users and develop better tools and techniques. Orr confirmed that this prediction has come to fruition over the past four years.
Construction of PracticePoint began in 2017, supported by a $5 million grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) and a matching grant from WPI. Officially opened in January 2020, PracticePoint quickly became a thriving place to innovate healthcare technology and launch advanced medical devices and systems through collaborative projects.
PracticePoint continues to provide resources to researchers and entrepreneurs ranging from a state-of-the-art MRI machine to a fully equipped operating suite to a multi-use motion capture facility. It is a resource for designing, prototyping, and evaluating everything from rehabilitative devices to surgical robotics through a consortium of academic, industry, and healthcare professionals with the involvement of users and patients.
Projects and innovations that have come out of PracticePoint complement the work being done in the life sciences and robotics fields at WPI. There, researchers are seamlessly integrating the fundamentals of life sciences, physical sciences, computer sciences, and engineering (especially biomedical and robotics). Faculty and students are deepening their understanding of human diseases and conditions, innovating treatments, and using their breakthroughs to improve human health. The new advisory board will help to advance this important work for years to come.
If you are interested in learning more about PracticePoint, contact practicepoint@wpi.edu.
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PracticePoint at WPI
Advisory Board Roster
Keely Benson - Director, MeHI at MassTech
Roman Fayerberg - Attorney, GreenbergTraurig
Gregory Fischer - CEO, AIM Medical Robotics
Michael Hyder MD - Center for Digital Health Solutions at UMass Memorial Hospital
Brian Johnson - President, MassMEDIC
Jeanne LeClair - Vice President of Economic Development & Partnerships, MLSC
Beth Loring - Founder, Loring Human Factors
John Orr - Interim Director, PracticePoint
Jay Prosser - Executive Director, Nursing Council on Workforce Sustainability, ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School
Moises Rivera-Bermudez - Senior Manager, Boston Scientific
Jenifer Siegelman MD - Head, Late Transational Oncology, Takeda
Bogdan Vernescu - Associate Provost for Research, WPI
Haichong (Kai) Zhang - Associate Professor, Robotics Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, WPI
Board Liaison
Kola Akindele - Associate Vice President, External Relations and Partnerships, WPI