Improving Patient Safety and Quality of Care
Name:
Dr. Megan Gregory
Email
megan.gregory@ufl.edu
Phone
(352) 294-8126
Faculty Department/Division
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
This project is primarily:
Translational
Research Project Description:
Our team works at the intersection of clinical informatics and patient safety/quality of care. We work in several different clinical areas and use both quantitive and qualitative methods and analyses. We have several projects underway in different stages. We will work with you to determine which project and tasks may be the best fit for you. Examples include:
-Recruitment and data collection for an mHealth study on vascular surgery patients
-Recruitment and data collection for a survey study of Spanish-speaking primary care patients
-Analyzing EHR data (quantitively or qualitative) to assess team collaboration in the inpatient setting
-Developing educational tools for Research IT/use of Epic in research
-Various work on projects intended to improve cancer screening and screening for immunotherapy related adverse events in cancer patients
-And more
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No
Implementation of an outreach strategy to improve the uptake of shared decision-making for lung cancer screening
Faculty Information
Name:
Ms. Miranda Reid
Email
miranda.reid@ufl.edu
Phone
(314) 874-2023
Faculty Department/Division
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
This project is primarily:
Translational
Research Project Description:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Despite this, rates of screening have remained persistently low nationwide hovering around 6%. Rates in Florida are even lower with only 3% of eligible individuals screened in 2022, and rural areas consistently face lower rates of screening and higher rates of lung cancer mortality. This project focuses on the implementation of pre-visit decision aid and outreach contact to improve uptake of shared-decision making for lung cancer screening at both an urban and a rural primary care clinic.
Medical students will have an opportunity to participate in both the implementation and evaluation of the project. This includes helping support adoption of the decision aid by providers at both clinics and recruitment of patients to use a pre-visit decision aid. This will allow students to develop important skills in pragmatic clinical research and improve their own patient communication skills in shared-decision making. Additionally, based on student interest there are opportunities for medical students to participate in the mixed methods evaluation of the feasibility and impact of the project, along with economic evaluation of the intervention. Any students that participate will have the opportunity to contribute to resulting publications, including opportunities for authorship on posters and papers. Prior experience is implementation science is not necessary, but students interested in this field are encouraged to reach out.
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No
Sustainability of Tobacco Cessation Programs at NCI-Designated Cancer Centers
Faculty Information
Name:
Dr. Ramzi Salloum
Email
rsalloum@ufl.edu
Phone
(352) 294-4997
Faculty Department/Division
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
This project is primarily:
Translational
Research Project Description:
Though smoking cessation improves outcomes and is advocated as a standard of care in oncology, tobacco treatment is not consistently delivered as a part of cancer care. To address this challenge, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative (C3I) in 2017 to provide financial and technical assistance to 52 NCI-designated cancer centers to implement evidence-based tobacco treatment programs and integrate smoking cessation into routine patient care in oncology settings. Although all funded centers submitted sustainability plans and were required to sustain their programs for a minimum of three years following the funded period, the trajectories and determinants of sustainability for tobacco treatment programs in these cancer centers are unknown.
The objective of this NCI-funded R01 study is to investigate the trajectories and determinants of sustainability across evidence-based tobacco treatment programs in C3I and to identify appropriate strategies for promoting sustainability using an implementation mapping approach (i.e., “sustainability mapping”). This research offers an unprecedented opportunity for identifying how investment in building evidence-based programs is converted into sustainable healthcare systems change, with the long-term goal of developing a generalizable model for sustaining evidence-based tobacco treatment programs in cancer care. We have already conducted qualitative interviews and surveys with program representatives from the tobacco treatment programs to characterize the sustainment of the programs and specify the relationships between the multilevel determinants, strategies, and outcomes of sustainability for tobacco treatment programs within cancer centers. Medical students will have the opportunity to collaborate on the ongoing analysis of quantitative and/or qualitative data and contribute to publications and conference presentations. We anticipate publishing at least three to four papers this upcoming year. Finally, students may assist in developing and testing a toolkit informed by our findings. We will employ sustainability mapping and user-centered design to develop and evaluate an interactive toolkit for sustaining tobacco treatment programs in oncology. The toolkit will be promoted to national audiences through presentations and webinars, and students will have the opportunity to participate in these promotional efforts.
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No
Post-COVID health of older adults
Name:
Dr. Todd Manini
Email
tmanini@ufl.edu
Phone
(352) 273-5914
Faculty Department/Division
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
This project is primarily:
Clinical
Research Project Description:
This project involves secondary data analysis of a longitudinal survey distributed to older adults at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in May, 2020 and resurveyed in October 2022. The student will receive hands on data management skills and learn basic statistical approaches for analyzing the data. The goal is to generate a scientific question within the bounds of the surveys asked and test a hypothesis — e.g. In older adults, what was the change in depressive symptoms between 2020 and 2022.
The initial purpose of the online survey was to understand changes in behaviors, social activities, health care and medication use, food security, anxiety, depression, technology/telehealth utilization, and mobility patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions were populated in their exact form from validated questionnaires that were modified to appropriately fit the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. before vs. after the COVID-19 pandemic). A follow-up of survey with similar questions along with new ones asked about returning to a “new-normal” following vaccine approval and deployment.
The survey was self-administered and taken on a voluntary basis. It was created via the University of Florida Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCAP) secure system and distributed through social media, email lists, websites and in health articles released by UFHealth. Additionally, direct mail post-cards, that advertised the online survey, were sent to 70,000 residents in the north-central region of Florida. The initial survey garnered 1082 responses in May and June 2020. The follow-up survey was completed by 428 respondents in the fall of 2022.
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No
Evaluating the Impact of a Centralized Value-Based Care Team on Healthcare Delivery in Adult Primary Care at UF Health
Faculty Information
Name:
Dr. Maria Kelly
Email
kellymn@peds.ufl.edu
Phone
(352) 265-7231
Faculty Department/Division
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
This project is primarily:
CQI
Research Project Description:
Working with UF Health physician leadership, this research proposal aims to investigate the impact of a centralized Value-Based Care (VBC) team within the UF Health system. Specifically, the Value-Based Care (VBC) team, partners with >9 UF Health adult primary care clinics and physicians to bridge gaps in primary care delivery. Specifically, this study will analyze how the VBC team, which provides care through a telemedicine and outreach platform, has influenced key areas of healthcare delivery, including transitional care management, annual wellness visits, HCC capture, among others identified, and how it aligns with system-wide health goals.
Additionally, the project should include a cost-savings analysis of the centralized VBC team to demonstrate its value, as more institutions transition to accountable care and shared savings models that value a centralized model. This retrospective study will utilize existing data, with the goal of creating a manuscript for submission by the end of the summer. Findings will also be prepared for presentation at a Vizient or AAMC conference.
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No