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Addressing Access and Installation of Appropriate Child Safety Seats within Fairfield County
Alexandra Sarkis
Motor vehicle crashes account for a vast majority of all fatal injuries in children and adolescents. Child safety seats have been shown to reduce mortality from motor vehicle crashes greatly; however, several studies have demonstrated that as many as 9 out of 10 car seats are installed incorrectly. Given the evident reduction in mortality when using a child safety restraint appropriately, the goal of this project was to educate the community about proper car seat installation techniques and to provide additional resources for families interested in obtaining a car seat safety check within the county. An additional goal was to provide transparency and subsequently improve access to car seats for families who may not be able to obtain their own.
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Nature Is The Best Medicine
Nathan Schweitzer
This project examined the cost of mental health diagnosis on the health care system and how interactions with green space and nature increase mental health wellbeing. A Vermont state government program to increase access to state parks through primary care providers offices is highlighted. Interviews were conducted with a community psychologist discussing interaction with nature and its effects on mental health. The second interview was with a member of the volunteer board for the Governors council on fitness discussing the origins of the state park program.
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Easy and accurate transition between common beta blockers: a QI project
Sam Short and Amalia Kane
Hypertension is a common condition that often worsens with disease progression and/or age alone. The management of hypertension often requires multiple drug therapy. Beta blockers can be useful for this, and are often prescribed for other comorbid conditions such as angina or heart failure. Yet, not all beta blockers have the same effect on blood pressure and it can be advantageous to transition patients to non-selective agents such as carvedilol. However, dose conversions are not 1:1 and inappropriate transition can be dangerous. No readily accessible resources are available to aid the clinical management of this problem. This project aims to compare two common beta blockers to bridge this gap.
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Increasing Screening for Barriers to Transportation at a Family Medicine Clinic in Rural Upstate NY
Noah Sorkow
Inconsistent access to reliable transportation is a significant barrier to medical care in rural New York. Lack of transportation results in missed medical appointments, poor management of chronic conditions, and increased preventable emergency room visits. Increasing routine screening for this social determinant of health can reveal underlying barriers to care, promote referrals to case workers and increase resource allocation. This project sought to increase routine screening via the promotion of smart phrases to be included in routine wellness documentation in the EMR, in conjunction with a didactic session for current family medicine residents.
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CBT in Primary Care
Brianna J. Spano
This is a community improvement project designed to address the growing need for and shortage of mental health care in Vermont. The project focuses on creating a brief training tool and guide for primary care physicians to be able to incorporate cognitive behavioral therapy in their practice.
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Bridging the Gap between Healthcare and Haircare
Devan Spence
Patients are likely to see their barbers and beauticians more often than their primary care physicians, when applicable. This project is centered around empowering "paraprofessionals" such as hairdressers and barbers with knowledge to bridge the gap in identifying skin cancer early in its course. Hairdressers were interviewed at two separate locations, "The prestige" and "Dave's Barbershop." They were presented with questionnaires before and after attending 10-minute presentation on identifying various types of skin cancers and reviewing a brochure. Results indicated hairdressers felt more confident in identifying skin cancer post-presentation, on average scored themselves 4 points higher on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 representing feeling the most confident).
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Barriers to Exercise: Fitness Made Simple
John A. Steinharter MS
Lifestyle modification is a necessary component of managing chronic illnesses in order to obtain the best outcomes. Exercise has been shown to be efficacious at improving outcomes in a number of different clinical contexts. Patient adherence to exercise as a lifestyle modification is lower than desired due to multifactorial etiology including socioeconomic constraints, disability, chronic pain, and motivation. This project attempts to address all four with a site specific educational pamphlet.
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Let's Talk Menopause: A Brochure Educating and Empowering Women in Menopause
Delaney Sztraicher
More than 6 million women in the United States experience menopausal and postmenopausal symptoms annually. Although up to 80% of women experience vasomotor symptoms, there continues to be stigma surrounding conversations of menopause and its associated symptoms. Due to this pervasive taboo, women often dismiss or ignore their symptoms. This neglect leads to greater utilization of healthcare resources and increased productivity losses with an ultimate economic burden of more than $810 billion in the US. Studies have shown that when empowered with education women feel better prepared to manage their symptoms. This project aims to dismantle the stigma by providing women with resources and education regarding menopause to empower them to seek support and guidance as they progress into this next stage of their life.
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Supporting Patient Education During Infant Formula Shortage: Washington County, VT
Rachel A. Wayne
The infant formula shortage is a current national public health concern. Many guardians of formula-fed infants are struggling to find appropriate nutrition for their babies. Families of low socioeconomic status are being disproportionately affected because many of them rely on the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC) to obtain formula, and their formula options through this program are limited. This project aims to provide Vermont families who have formula-fed infants with education and resources to navigate the formula shortage and keep their children healthy and fed.
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Accessibility of Nutritious and Healthy Foods to Older Adults
Kristen Wright
Food insecurity rates are high among older adults who have chronic conditions and/or are homebound. These patients have functional limitations, comorbidities limiting their mobility, and often are socially isolated or live alone, all of which impact their ability to access or make healthy meals. As food insecurity rises, so do the health care costs related to inaccessibility to healthy food, involving the increased risk or prevalence of chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. This project aimed to understand the barriers older adults face in accessing and making healthy meals, and to educate health care providers and patients on recognizing food insecurity and utilizing resources to improve patient accessibility and availability to better nutrition and thus better health.
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Promoting Community Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Erik J. Zhang
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected aspects of health and community beyond the acute phase of COVID-19 infection, including chronic health conditions, mental health, substance use, food insecurity, access to healthcare, and housing insecurity. Further, existing disparities in these factors and other social determinants of health such as socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood, and physical environment have been exacerbated by the response to the COVID- 19 pandemic. Community members face negative health impacts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and response. They should be made aware of community resources for immediate and long-term solutions to the difficulties they experience.
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Know Your Rights
Victor Abraham II
In today's growing immigration crisis, patients and providers should be aware of their rights and how to protect their patient's confidentiality adequately. Decreased knowledge of patient rights and immigration status has reduced care quality. This project seeks to increase provider and patient knowledge on immigration and associated patient rights.
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Opportunities for Patient Self-Reflection During Acute Phase of Depression Treatment
Millen Abselab
This project for UVMMC Family Medicine at Hinesburg investigates the acute phase of depression treatment for adult patients and introduces opportunities for patient empowerment during this 4-to-6-week window through de-identified automated text surveys for self-reflection about treatment and pattern tracking contributory to mood. Sample text survey built on Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and deployment of text surveys is based on Mosio. Future interventions can utilize mobile phone apps based on patient response to surveys.
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Assessing Stroke Awareness, Preparedness, and Preferred Communication Modalities
Dana I. Allison
Stroke is currently the fifth leading cause of death and is recognized as one of the most expensive chronic diseases in the United States, generating 30 billion dollars annually in medical costs and lost earnings. In this exploratory research study, we examine patients’ knowledge of stroke features, associated risk factors to enhance communication, and educational practices of for primary care clinicians to enhance patient preparedness and stroke outcomes for patient populations with risk factors for stroke.
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Wound Care in the Homeless Population- CHCB and Safe Harbor Clinic
Niveditha Badrinarayanan
Most of the clinician interactions in the homeless community has prioritized acute needs over chronic complaints like wounds. An inherent distrust of the healthcare system is also common in the homeless community due to lack of access to care, transportation, insurance, et. This project is aimed at encouraging preventative care in the homeless community with respect to wound care to reduce their concerns about unaddressed complaints and also decrease the burden on the providers during their healthcare visits.
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Setting Expectations for Mental Healthcare Referral
Emily Bennett
Patients are referred to mental health care by their primary care providers, but there is often a misunderstanding of what that process looks like. This project aimed to understand the referral process and create improvements that will help patients stay engaged to improve their mental wellbeing.
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Motivation for MAT
Jacob Bernknopf
The goal of this project was to discover a commonality in why patients begin the MAT program. This will hopefully make it easier for future providers to help future patients articulate why they need to make the change in their life. This can be especially beneficial in patients dealing with concurrent stimulant or alcohol use.
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The Preventative Health Care Shortage: A Look at the VT and CT Community Perspectives and Medical Student Interest
Brittany Botticelli, Jenna Elkhoury, and Michael L. Lawler
With the permission of Kenneth Palanza et al, we adapted and modified a previously generated survey that allowed us to better understand the motivations and barriers of medical students to enter primary care. The survey was dispersed to all medical students at LCOM as well as third and fourth year medical students at Ross University and American University of the Caribbean (AUC). We analyzed preliminary data from 100 respondents.
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Helping People Overcome Barriers to Exercise Through In-Office PT Exercise Evaluation Referrals
Matthew Charles Hill Brandt
Utilization of a poster in a primary care exam room advertising Physical Therapy Exercise Evaluations in an effort to help patients overcome barriers to exercising. The goal of the project is to capture people in the contemplative/preparatory stage of behavior change and help them reach the action and maintenance phases to improve health.
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Examining Provider Burden from the 21st Century Cures Act
Jordan Carver
The 21st Century Cures Act enacted new protocols in Spring 2021 requiring all patient notes and reports to be made available electronically as soon as they are finalized. In order to study the initial impact of this change on physician burden, a survey was sent out to Burlington, VT providers to assess impacts to their workflow.
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