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Miekie makes the most of her final year project in Industrial Engineering
Miekie Treurnicht completed in 2009 her final year research project in Engineering within the context of telemedicine. For 2010 she already enrolled for a MScEng (Engineering Management).

Browsing the internet for research opportunities in healthcare engineering, Miekie Treurnicht stumbled upon a student paper competition hosted by the USA based Institute of Industrial Engineering, Society of Health Systems and the American Society for Quality conference. Although she had no expectation to win the competition, she decided to write the paper from her final year project, enter the competition, and if she does not win, use the paper at a later stage for a journal article.
She was notified late in January that she won the undergraduate category of the competition with her paper titled; A decision support framework for telemedicine implementation in the developing world. Liezl van Dyk, her supervisor, Nico Treurnicht, Dr Mike Blanckenberg from Stellenbosch University and Jill Fortuin-Abrahams from the Medical Research Council were all involved in this project.

As part of her prize, Miekie will present her paper at the SHS/ASQ conference in Atlanta, on 27 February. She feels honoured at the triple surprise she received from her final year project: "It was a big surprise that I got a distinction for my final year project, was nominated for the Jac van der Merwe Competition for Innovation, and of course best of all, this competition! I now have received the maximum from my final year project!"