The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality recently released the Rural Wisconsin Chronic Disease Toolkit, and updated the Toolkit for Improving Hypertension Care & Outcomes and the Toolkit for Improving Diabetes Care & Outcomes.
Individuals in Wisconsin can now view the prevalence of obesity at the Zip Code level. The Obesity Prevention Initiative, funded through the Wisconsin Partnership Program, has released a report that was co-authored by HIP staff Lauren Bednarz, MPH and Maureen Smith, MD, PhD, MPH, along with an interactive mapping tool on the Wisconsin Health Atlas website, that describes the obesity epidemic in Wisconsin.
Dr. Elizabeth Cox and collaborators have been awarded UW2020 funding to build a translational research pipeline to personalize diabetes prevention and treatment. The project will establish a data registry and biobank of individuals with diabetes, called the Diabetes Research Accelerator for Wisconsin (DRAW), as a step towards delivering personalized diabetes care and facilitating interdisciplinary translational diabetes research at UW-Madison.
Dr. Heather Johnson recently served as the keynote speaker at the 7th Annual National Wear Red Day event at Fountain of Life Church. The goal of the event was to educate African American on the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and lifestyle changes that women can make to reduce their risk, and Wear Red Day also included networking and fellowship opportunities. The event was one of many across the nation for American Heart Month, "Go Red for Women." Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death among American women over the age of 25, and African American women are disproportionately affected.
In a recent study by Dr. Andrew Quanbeck et al., coaching primary care doctors on opioid prescribing guidelines resulted in a 11% drop in opioid doses at UW Health clinics. Conversely, doses increased by 8% at other clinics in the health system where the coaching program was not implemented. The results from the study come at a crucial time as the opioid abuse epidemic continues in the state and nationwide.
1 in 3 women will unfortunately die from heart disease. In a recent video on Discover Wisconsin, Dr. Heather Johnson discusses signs and symptoms of heart disease, as well as tips for living a heart-healthy lifestyle that can reduce your chances of heart problems. View the video below or on the Discover Wisconsin site here.
Yao Liu, MD recently spoke on the Wisconsin Doctors program about how the UW Teleophthalmology program is working with the Mile Bluff Medical Center to screen patients close to their homes for diabetic eye disease, which is the leading cause of blindness in working age adults in Wisconsin and nationally. Through teleophthalmology, patients can be screened for diabetic eye disease through photos taken with retinal cameras at clinics near their homes. The images are then sent to UW-Madison, where ophthalmologists review them for signs of retinal damage.
View the episode below or on Wisconsin Doctors here.
We're excited to welcome Edmond Ramly, PhD as a new faculty member at HIP! Edmond is a health systems engineer and new Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. His work focuses on designing best practices for ambulatory care that balance standardization and local adaptations. Recently, he has worked closely with Dr. Christie Bartels to implement work system redeisgn for hypertension protocols.
Dr. Heidi Brown is testing a new program, "Mind Over Matter," to reduce or prevent incontinence in women in Wisconsin. Fecal and urinary incontinence are common issues affecting women, but they are rarely discussed. The Mind Over Matter program will recruit 120 women in south and central Wisconsin who will be randomly assitned to receive the program (3 sessions that are 2 hours each), before or after taking a survey on symptoms. The program is designed to focus on things that the participants can do to relieve symptoms, such as changing diet, fluid intake, and exercise. Read more about the study here.
Dr. Christie Bartels is conducting a year-long study on how to help patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis quit smoking. She is using a novel approach of not only asking health care providers for their thoughts, but also seeking patient input through focus groups on the best way to reach patients who smoke to help them quit. “The goal of the study is really to invite people to better health and not necessarily to shame people for smoking behavior, which I think has been the perception for years,” Bartels said. Read more about the study here.