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The University of Wisconsin - Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) Community–Academic Partnerships component (ICTR-CAP) is organized as a federation of more than 40 programs and centers across the UW-Madison campus and Marshfield Clinic each providing resources to support community-engaged translational research. The ICTR-CAP Steering Committee consists of the faculty directors of federation programs and participates in strategic planning to support resource coordination, identify need areas, and build resources to support community-engaged translational research.

A new publication by Dr. Christie Bartels was recently featured in a press release by Wiley. Although smoking increases symptoms and health risks for patients with rheumatic diseases, interventions to help patients quit are rarely available at rheumatology clinics.

In this article, authors implemented a rheumatology staff-driven protocol, Quit Connect, to increase the rate of electronic referrals (e-referrals) to free, state-run tobacco quit lines (TQL). The group found that implementing Quit Connect in rheumatology clinics was feasible and improved referrals to a state-run TQL.

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While Collaborative Care is a proven solution to this crisis, implementing it in any medical system exposes unexpected challenges. As an implementation group shapes a Collaborative Care model to fit their local environment, there is no systematic method to determine which parts of the model can be modified or where flexibility might undermine success.

COVID-19 vaccination may be off to a slow start, but soon supply levels will rise and processes will be streamlined. Thoughtfully designed outreach with well-crafted messages will be of the utmost importance to ensure enough people are vaccinated to put us on the path to population immunity and long-term protection from the disease. As decision-makers plan and implement vaccination campaigns, understanding the risk of death (mortality) from COVID-19 and potential barriers to vaccine uptake by ZIP code will be valuable in building effective communication and outreach plans in each community.

HIP Investigator, Christie Bartels, MD, MS, was appointed permanent chief of the Division of Rheumatology within the UW Department of Medicine.

Dr. Bartels currently investigates ways to reduce health disparities and improve the cardiovascular health and longevity of patients with rheumatic or other inflammatory diseases. Her team is also examining how retention in care affects lupus outcomes, using a Centers for Disease Control/World Health Organization-endorsed model from HIV to reduce health disparities.

Congratulations, Dr. Bartels!

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COVID-19 vaccination may be off to a slow start, but soon supply levels will rise and processes will be streamlined. Thoughtfully designed outreach with well-crafted messages will be of the utmost importance to ensure enough people are vaccinated to pave the way to population immunity and long-term protection from the disease.

Staff at UW Health and the University of Wisconsin Health Innovation Program have developed an algorithm that can be used to improve the equity of the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations to healthcare personnel during Phase 1a of the CDC’s vaccine distribution plan, if not enough vaccine is available to immunize an entire group of employees with similar job-related risk exposure. The COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritization Tool ranks health care personnel with similar job-related risk exposure by risk of mortality to COVID-19 according to SVI and age.

This tool is intended for healthcare administrators, policymakers, and researchers interested in equitably distributing vaccinations to healthcare personnel.

HIP Investigator, Dr. Jennifer Weiss recently received funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for her research project, “Measuring Modality-specific Interval Colorectal Cancer Rates Across Healthcare Systems.” The goal of the project is to expand the existing definitions of interval colorectal cancers (cancers identified after a negative screening or surveillance exam and before the date of the next recommended exam). The project team will develop a measurement implementation strategy with standards for reporting that can be easily adopted and compared across healthcare systems.