HIP Data

Dr. Maureen Smith was recently awarded a 4-year grant from the Wisconsin Partnership Program to support a Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ)-sponsored effort in collaboration with the Collaborative Center for Health Equity (CCHE) to measure and publicly report disparities in the quality of care for health systems across the state of Wisconsin. While Wisconsin ranks high in overall quality of care nationally, the state performs poorly with respect to disparities in quality of care.

Dr. Maureen Smith was recently awarded $1.4 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for a joint project between UW-Madison, Massachussetts General Hospital/Harvard University, and the University of Iowa. In this project, the investigators will seek to identify the most important parts of case management programs in 22 health systems across the country and assess how well they work. The project will help build the capacity of PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network. Read the full press release here.

 HIP is partnering with the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ) to monitor the prevalence of obesity in the state of Wisconsin. With HIP’s support, WCHQ recently developed a publicly reported metric on adult Body Mass Index (BMI). Data for this measure was recently released for the first time by 20 healthcare organizations on 1.7 million patients across the state.

The State of Wisconsin is currently in the midst of a diabetes epidemic, and management of diabetes lies almost entirely in the hands of those who live with the condition. To help address this issue, the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging launched the Healthy Living with Diabetes Program in 2013 with support from the Health Innovation Program. The program consists of a series of self-management workshop sessions that are conducted by trained lay leaders, many of whom have diabetes themsevles. To date, the program has reached over 2,300 participants across the state. 

Congratulations to Dr. Menggang Yu, who will lead 1 of 46 research projects approved for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funding to help patients and those who care for them make better informed healthcare decisions. For more information about Dr. Yu's research and PCORI, visit this link.  

A new toolkit developed by Dr. Elizabeth Magnan is available on HIPxChange. The Algorithm for Identifying Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions (Multimorbidity) contains over 4,000 ICD-9 codes that are mapped to AHRQ Clinical Classification Software (CCS) codes, which are then bundled into 69 clinically relevant chronic condition categories. Researchers can use these categories to examine the effect of multiple chronic conditions or specific comorbidities on health and outcomes, or in quality improvement or public reporting work.

Dr. Maureen Smith recently received an AAMC Learning Health System Research Champion Award to recognize connections that were built between the UW Health, the UW Office of Continuing Professional Development, and the Health Innovation Program to link clinical quality improvement, maintenance of certification, and research. Together, these groups created a web-based resource to support clinicians in the writing and preparation of manuscripts based on their quality improvement activities, facilitating the evolution from quality improvement to generalizable knowledge. 

Dr. Christine Everett recently received the 2014 Article of the Year Award from the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) for the article titled, "Physician assistants and nurse practitioners perform effective roles on teams caring for patients with Medicare patients with diabetes," which was published in Health Affairs in November 2013. A $1.1 million grant was recently funded by the Veteran's Administration to further evaluate roles based on her methodology.  

Several HIP investigators were recently awarded pilot grants from the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (UW-ICTR). Drs. Christie Bartels, Michelle Chui, Korey Kennelty, Nancy Pandhi, and Gretchen Schwarze will be conducting projects on a variety of topics in inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy settings that engage patients and community health care organizations as collaborators.

Dr. Christie Bartels was recently awarded a 2.5 year Pfizer Independent Grant for Learning and Change for her project, "Systems-based CVD prevention protocols for rheumatology teams: A low-cost multidisciplinary approach." The goal of the project is to improve management of modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors as a path to improve the cardiovascular health and survival of patients with rheumatic diseases. The project will apply evidence-based staff-driven protocols in RA clinic visits to improve management of hypertension and tobacco use. This QI project responds to the aim of the Pfizer program to support "screening for and modification of modifiable CVD risk factors in RA patients."