DHI Program

With cohorts starting in 2021, the DHI Program taps into the expertise of facilitators across UR Medicine and the university campus, spanning disciplines such as anesthesiology, pediatrics, data and computer science, business, and ethics. Three fundamental questions guide the program:

1. What is Digital Health? 
2. How does Digital Health exist in academia?
3. How can one become an entrepreneur?

When accepted into the program, participants embark with a two-week intensive, followed by a longitudinal mentored project in their area of interest. Projects take various forms, from traditional research to entrepreneurial proof-of-concept. Mentors throughout the institution guide participants through their chosen projects based on their skills and interests.

Health care is demanding, often leaving little room for additional pursuits. To address this challenge, the DHI Program is divided into two parts. First, participants take a two-week didactic bootcamp, offering them comprehensive knowledge across various areas, including telehealth, medical devices, mobile and web applications, electronic health records, data analysis, and artificial intelligence. This also enables them to make informed decisions about their project focus. The second part focuses on their experiential project, allowing for a deep dive into a digital health-related topic of their choice.

Though time and resources are constant challenges, the DHI Program relies on strong relationships across disciplines. This allows those involved to identify commonalities across the health system and employ digital health innovation to approach problems collaboratively.

On the organizational side, Dr. Reyes received a Dean's Teaching Fellowship to further develop the program from 2022 to 2024. The program has experienced exponential growth, serving more residents and departments each year. From its humble beginnings with one pediatric resident, it expanded to four residents in the second year and further to four residents along with four nursing professionals in the third year. The DHI Program's trajectory indicated its growing impact on healthcare and its commitment to shaping future innovators.

The DHI Program exemplifies how combining medical expertise with technology could transform healthcare, paving the way for a brighter, more interconnected future in medicine.

Our DHI Program Learners

2025 Learners

Reshmii Bondili

I am pursuing my master’s in data science at the University of Rochester after completing my bachelor’s in computer science. My past experiences have focused on applying data analytics and machine learning to solve real-world problems across several domains. This past summer, I worked as a Data Scientist at a startup, where I developed financial forecasting models, and contributed to an AI-powered fp&a chatbot. I also conducted research at the URMC Motion Lab, where I designed a PostgreSQL database and studied preoperative factors that influence recovery after lumbar spine surgery. I am excited to join the Digital Health Innovation Program because of the opportunity to collaborate with clinicians and technical experts, learn from diverse faculty. I believe this experience will broaden my perspective on the problems data science can solve in healthcare.

Srujana Chintala

I'm pursuing a master’s in data science with over 8 years of Healthcare IT experience, including experience in Machine Learning and NLP projects. Currently working as a Senior Software Tester at Caseworthy Inc., I specialize in testing healthcare data systems. My expertise includes testing EDI files, care coordination systems, and provider platforms designed for patient use. Data validation using SQL has been a key part of my work, ensuring system accuracy. Through the DHI program, I want to understand how technology bridges healthcare and IT while exploring digital innovations that enhance patient care and accessibility. Looking forward to connecting with the team.

Chad Condidorio

I’m a sports physical therapist at URMC, where I also serve as Chief of the Sports and Spine Rehab program in a clinical leadership role. My work focuses on optimizing rehabilitation care, and I’m especially interested in how we can use technology to drive innovation in a field that has traditionally been slow to adopt it. Through this bootcamp, my goal is to explore ways technology can support a more seamless, multidisciplinary care model—ultimately improving both orthopedic and broader health outcomes.

Sakshi Hegde

I am currently in the second year of my master’s in data science program. I transitioned from a background in Physics to Data Science, and since then, I have been actively developing my skills through various academic projects. These include work in statistical analysis and building databases during my coursework. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to work on an exciting project that involved LLM prompt building and NLP, which further strengthened my technical expertise. I am particularly interested in the healthcare domain, and my goal is to apply data science techniques to real-world public health datasets to improve analysis and generate meaningful insights.

Rachel Holmes

I am a registered nurse in periop at the ambulatory orthopedics surgery center (AOC). I started when the building first opened and there were many informatics projects that needed to be done. I was able to work on a project with Dr. Breneman, integrating procedure pass into our periop workflow. We presented our project at UGM, EPIC’s national conference in Wisconsin last summer. This project made me passionate about informatics and digital health. I am currently taking classes for my master's in nursing informatics, and I will be graduating this December. I can't wait to learn more about digital health at UofR in this program and meet others who have the same passions as me.

Wil Pigeon

I’m a long-time faculty member in Psychiatry. I’m a clinical psychologist and run our "Sleep & Neurophysiology Research Lab." I also very recently separated/retired from the VA’s national center focused on Veteran suicide prevention, where I held various roles since its inception back in 2007. I’m primarily a sleep researcher, but I also oversee from afar our UR Insomnia/Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic. The latter will be my focus with DHI. Specifically, I am hoping to increase the capacity of the clinic both in terms of (1) training new clinicians with novel (i.e., cool won’t bore you to tears) approaches and (2) exploring, testing and maybe creating/developing options to scale up delivery of interventions. Ultimately the goals are to serve more patients, more efficiently (i.e., reduce wait list time from three centuries to three months) while maintaining high standard of care.

Shayann Ramedani

I am a final year Anesthesiology resident at URMC pursuing a fellowship in critical care. My background before medical school was in management consulting in healthcare focused in operations excellence and quality assessment. During medical school I worked for a nonprofit called NODE. Health where I assisted in digital health education and validation trials. My passion during medical school and residency has been looking at access issues to care in regard to rural hospital closures and increasing perioperative and critical care quality and outcomes as well as enhancing perioperative flow. Looking forward to meeting everyone!

Priyanshu Rawat

I am a Data Science graduate student with a background in Computer Science. As part of my academic work, I have explored how a child’s vision develops from birth through adolescence, how children learn to recognize shapes, and how these insights can inform advancements in machine learning algorithms. I’m now excited to explore healthcare from a new perspective and investigate the intersection of data science and clinical practice.

Joslyn Soule, D.N.P.

I work at Highland Hospital; my role is the Geriatric Clinical Nurse Specialist. I'm a second career nurse, with a background in exercise science and health promotion. I received my Doctor of Nursing Practice degree in 2020, focused in adult-gerontology. I'm very interested in the DHI program to work on the problem of hospital delirium! Improving recognition, prevention, and management. One of my main projects at Highland to improve geriatric patient care is the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, and now the CMS Age Friendly Hospital Measure.

Nina Terry

I hold a BSN as well as a bachelor’s in industrial design. I'm a former PICU nurse and currently serve as data manager for pediatric critical care at Golisano Children’s Hospital, where I oversee VPS and PC4 registry data and contribute to research and quality improvement initiatives. My background in both nursing and design informs my interest in how digital health can make complex data more usable for clinicians and directly improve patient care and outcomes. Through the DHI program, I’m excited to connect with others, learn new tools, and explore ways to bridge clinical practice, design, and data.

Yanwei "Zoe" Zhang

I am a second-year pediatric resident with a strong interest in pediatric gastroenterology. With an academic background in computer science, I am passionate about integrating technology into pediatric GI care to enhance clinical efficiency, improve patient outcomes, and proactively address preventable disease processes such as constipation! I am hoping to collaborate on some exciting projects!

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