COVID-19

Healthy Metric went live today, releasing five new brief reports focused on health disparities in Wisconsin. These first reports provide an initial look at the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on health and health disparities. The first five reports provide an initial look at the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on health and health disparities. They cover a wide range of issues impacting health outcomes and health care in Wisconsin including:

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, two leading causes of premature death in Americans (CDC - High Blood Pressure). In fact, heart disease is the leading cause of death in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Department of Health Services - Heart Disease).

Self-rooming is a relatively new process where patients direct themselves to an assigned exam room immediately after checking in, bypassing the traditional waiting room experience where a staff member would escort them from the waiting room to the exam room.

PATH member, Sandra Kamnetz, MD developed the Retrofitting Clinics for Self-Rooming toolkit to provide a framework for implementing self-rooming in any primary care clinic, including those that were not intentionally designed for this purpose. The tool provides decision-makers with prerequisites to consider, tips, supplies needed, and the steps to implementation, as well as workflows for patient check-in and check-out.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put new constraints on the care of patients. Concerns about viral transmission, limiting exposure, proper PPE utilization, and evolving best practices in caring for patients with a novel viral disease has led to healthcare workers feeling high levels of uncertainty and has left healthcare systems scrambling to prepare their staff for sudden surges in patients.

Authors developed the WIRED-RT COVID-19 Simulation Curriculum Toolkit to help health systems and healthcare providers prepare for surges in COVID-19 cases by focusing on proper PPE utilization, infection control practices, and patient care best-practices as of the date of publication.

Dr. Edmond Ramly has been named one of the 2021 ICTR-CAP Stakeholder & Patient Engaged Research Pilot Awards for his Addressing disparities in the primary care of chronic conditions in the COVID-19 era: A tool for clinics to map local barriers to known strategies project.

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.

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.

We are pleased to announce the pilot launch of the UW ICTR Neighborhood Health Partnerships Program (NHP).

Finding timely and accurate local health data – health information at the sub-county level - is a challenge we all face when prioritizing, scoping, implementing and evaluating health and health equity work. Health information is often only available at the county level or higher. Neighborhoods within counties are heterogeneous, and sub-county data can offer insight into patterns of health inequities and help identify local factors that can promote health and well-being.

Health Innovation Program partnered with the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality, the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), and the ICTR Neighborhood Health Partnerships Program to feature three posters at the Wisconsin Public Health Association Virtual Public Health Conference. Check out more information about each poster below: