Meghan Brennan and Heidi Brown awarded ICTR pilot funding

Meghan Brennan Heidi BrownHIP Investigators Meghan Brennan, MD and Heidi Brown, MD were recently awarded pilot funding through the University of Wisconsin – Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (UW ICTR).

Dr. Brennan will be identifying strategies to provide integrated care for rural patients with diabetic foot ulcers in collaboration with Dr. Christie Bartels, the Wisconsin Research & Education Network, and the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative. Approximately 2 million Americans develop diabetic foot ulcers every year, which results in amputations for 5% of those affected and death within 5 years for 50% of them. Dr. Brennan’s research team has found that rural patients face even greater risks, and this study will aim to inform the design and future piloting of an intervention to promote integrated care for rural patients with diabetic foot ulcers to help reduce these disparities.

Dr. Brown, in partnership with several programs and collaborators across the state, will be testing the effectiveness of an electronic delivery method for the “Mind Over Matter: Healthy Bowels, Healthy Bladder” (MOM) behavior change program for women with urinary or bowel incontinence. The MOM program has been demonstrated to improve incontinence by over 55%, but few women reported that they would be likely to attend an in-person program for this. An electronic version of MOM has the potential for a higher uptake of the program, and the long-term goal of this study is to improve the reach of the program by adapting the current workshop-based MOM curriculum to an electronic format, characterizing the reach of the electronic program, and assessing the demand for the electronic program.