Carlos Pérez-Aldana, a student at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), is using a novel approach to analyze social media data to help young cancer survivors.

“My research is focused on studying these online communities to learn more about how cancer survivors communicate and support each other: the language that they use, what kind of support they are providing, and what topics they are talking about,” said Pérez-Aldana, a PhD student atUTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics．“我的项目的主要目的之一是在20tand the dynamics of these communities to ultimately find ways to improve social support exchange.”

Pérez-Aldana is particularly interested in what kind of social support young cancer survivors need through diagnosis, treatment, and remission.

这个话题对他个人产生了影响。他的妻子克里斯蒂（Kristi）在约会时被诊断出年轻成年，在他们俩一起去欧洲的研究生院之后。这向他展示了癌症如何影响生活的各个方面，尤其是专业和个人目标，以及社会支持的基本支持。

Pérez-Aldana目前的工作是设计和创建干预措施以帮助经历癌症的年轻人获得所需的支持的第一步。癌症具有沉重的情绪体重。它会影响人际关系，并引起心理健康问题，焦虑，并担心会再次出现。

“I knew cancer in a young adult was very disruptive for life, and that was a personal motivation to work with this population, but when I started researching deeper I realized that there are very few studies targeting this population and informatics has a great potential to contribute,” he said.

The informatics approach Pérez-Aldana is using can be applied to other groups of people, like people living with diabetes or other chronic health conditions. “These approaches can also be applied to caretakers to help support them as well,” he said.

他说：“鉴于19日的情况以及我们一生中有多少部分过渡到在线的情况，这是研究在线社区的好时机。”beplay苹果手机能用吗“我们在社交媒体上的联系越来越牢固，但这并不总是一件好事。这些方法也可以应用于研究虚假信息在社区内的传播。”

Advancing health IT technologies and literacy in Colombia

Prior to joining the School of Biomedical Informatics, Pérez-Aldana helped take early steps to advance the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) among Bogotá’s public hospitals, aiming to connect more than 20 health institutions to serve millions of Colombian patients, and bringing specialists to those in need.

He has facilitated advancements in biomedical informatics, telemedicine, and public health in his native country.

Pérez-Aldana与休斯顿Uthealth的联系始于2014年，是波哥大El Bosque University的教职员工。他正在研究哥伦beplay苹果手机能用吗比亚大学生物医学信息学硕士学位的计划。该计划在2018年获得了国家教育部长的批准，这使其成为哥伦比亚的第一项生物医学信息学计划。

After earning a Master of Science in telemedicine and bioengineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain, Pérez-Aldana returned to Colombia to work with the local health authority on a massive project to implement electronic health record systems for the 22 large public hospitals which serve the 11 million people living in Bogotá’s metro area.

“One of the main challenges was the limited funding to purchase an electronic health record system,” he said. “A lot of the work happened behind the scenes, evaluating what kind of modules were needed most. We were working on an interoperability model for the city’s EHRs, so the system would connect all of the hospitals so that they could talk to each other and share data. It’s not easy, but it’s ideal.”

The work also included implementing telemedicine capability, aiming to greatly expand access to specialists.

“我们试图弄清楚如何通过远程医疗将农村医院连接到城市，以便他们可以分享他们的专家，但不仅仅是农村地区。佩雷斯·阿尔达纳（Pérez-Aldana）说：“该市本身的一些医院没有重要的专家。”放射学是一个例子。某些设施没有24小时的紧急情况进入放射学，我们试图通过远程医疗解决这一问题。”

在从事这些项目的过程中，Pérez-Aldana意识到需要更多的工作来使其成功和自我维持。

“I realized people were lacking skills to implement health IT in general. It wasn’t just the doctors, but the IT people in the hospitals implementing these technologies needed additional training,” he said. “That led me to go back to El Bosque University in 2012, not only because it has a prestigious school of medicine, but because I was able to convince the dean of the school of medicine that we needed to develop programs in biomedical and health informatics.”

它最初是一门选修课程，这是佩雷斯·阿尔达纳（Pérez-Aldana）在美国期间仍在远程教授的几门课程之一。

“In 2014, there was an idea to develop a master’s degree in biomedical informatics,” he said. “Given that I was promoting these topics in the school of medicine, and that El Bosque had an agreement with UTHealth, I volunteered myself to come to the School of Biomedical Informatics to learn how to structure our curriculum.”

In 2015, Pérez-Aldana organized an international symposium with UTHealth Houston SBMI guests, and in 2016, he came back to Texas again — this time as a student.

“It became a necessity for me to learn more about the technologies and methods I was teaching, and to be able to better design research in the field of informatics,” he said. “After discussing it with my academic peers and with UTHealth Houston faculty, I decided it would be best for me to get my PhD so I could keep promoting the development of this field in Colombia.”

“我不必考虑回到休斯顿的Uthealth。我知道教师，学校和研究。beplay苹果手机能用吗我已经被卖了，”他说。“我知道这是一个独特的创新场所。”

The next chapter

Pérez-Aldana said he is excited to be embarking on the most important and exciting role in his life — being a father to his infant son, Thomas.

他说：“我的第一个职业是作为父亲在家里有一个孩子。”“做父亲是很多工作，但这真是太神奇了。它会改变你的生活。这不仅是常规，而且是您对生活的看法。它改变了一切。”

Professionally, Pérez-Aldana said he is open to opportunities as he graduates. He would love to continue teaching in the U.S. and in Colombia, where there are a growing number of opportunities as the informatics field takes root.

他说：“该领域在各州更加发达，但是哥伦比亚的数字技术采用迅速发展。”“上下文是非常不同的，资源是有限的。我们可以交换成功和创新的做事方式，我敢肯定，我们可以交流大量信息，并为美国和哥伦比亚的学生提供学习机会。”