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Expanding Awareness of Air Quality and Health Impacts in the Clinical Setting
Caitlin Early
Smoke from Canadian wildfires has greatly impacted the air quality in Vermont this year, 2023. Poor air quality can lead to an increase in inflammatory reactions in the body, for example increasing asthma and COPD exacerbations and causing symptoms in those with cardiovascular disease. This project aimed to improve awareness of the negative health impacts of poor air quality, particularly for those patients with existing lung and heart disease, those of older age, and children. This intervention sparked conversation between patients and providers to discuss symptoms, medication refills, and recommendations for poor air quality days. With lines of communication open and as more research on the impacts of wildfire smoke is completed, providers at the Hinesburg Family Medicine Clinic will be able to share more information and guidelines with their patients.
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Increasing Narcan Distribution in a Primary Care Setting
Charlotte Evans
Opioid use and overdoses are an ongoing health issue in Maine, especially in the Lewiston/Auburn metropolitan area. While Maine has a robust Narcan distribution system, it is not frequently given out in primary care settings. Though interviews and an anonymous survey, it seems the reason behind this is multifaceted, so multiple interventions were created to target both patient awareness and education and provider screening and prescription, with the goal of increasing distribution in this setting.
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Nutritional Literacy: Enhancing Community Health Through Pamphlet Education
Jordan Franco
Research suggests that individuals with limited nutritional literacy may struggle to make informed decisions about their food choices. Such individuals could derive benefits from targeted interventions aimed at enhancing their comprehension and utilization of nutrition label information. This project addresses this issue by enhancing the nutritional literacy of local food pantry clients through the distribution of an informative pamphlet designed to improve their understanding of nutrition.
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Ordering Urgent Imaging In Outpatient Primary Care
Amanda Galenkamp
Current imaging order sets in EPIC allow for STAT (<48 >hours) or routine (4-6 weeks) radiology scheduling. Patients requiring urgent imaging often are not scheduled in a timely fashion and either re-present to the office or the ED. The goal of this project was to provide a standard operating procedure to providers and staff for patients requiring urgent imaging.
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Integrating Artificial Intelligence into the Mental Health Landscape
Luke Giangregorio
The capabilities of the mental healthcare system have been vastly outpaced by present mental health demands. Chatbots are an innovative, self-engaging, adjunctive solution that might help mitigate system-wide implementation failures in access and offer real-time support instead of just being stuck on a long provider waitlist.
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Pamphlet of Preventative Immunization and Screening Recommendations for Adult Women
Annie Glessner-Fischer
This project seeks to consolidate common immunization recommendations and preventative screening recommendations for adult women 18 years and older, based on the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. This resource should be offered to patients of the primary care office, with the goal of providing information in a concise and approachable manner that allows patients to review general recommendations on their own, generate questions or express concerns about their health, and encourage patients to advocate for their own health and well-being. With this intervention, the broader goal is to increase immunization rates and adherence to recommended screenings in order to catch and address preventable health conditions sooner.
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Promoting Music Therapy Referrals for Neurodivergent Children
Benjamin M. Glickman
Music therapy is perhaps an underutilized, underfunded, and undervalued part of the tool kit available to physicians, parents and children with ASD and other developmental disabilities within Clinton County. There are opportunities to increase referrals for music therapy for children receiving care at the CVPH Family Medicine Center and within the county.
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Provider Education on Annual B12 Levels in Patients on Metformin
Callan Gravel-Pucillo MMS
Education of primary care providers about the current recommendations, guidelines, and caveats surrounding obtaining annual B12 levels in patients on metformin to screen for deficiency. Education was based off of informal survey results assessing providers' current practices and the preferred medium through which they wanted to recieve educational content. Educational content was presented in a flowchart format for ease of use and distributed at both practice sites for providers to hang at their workstations.
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Addressing Distinct Health Needs of People with Disabilities
Tyler A. Harkness BS
One in five adults (21%) in the state of Connecticut is living with a disability of some kind, whether it be intellectual or physical. When compared to people without disabilities, people with disabilities are at increased risk for adverse health outcomes such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression; are more likely not to be able to see a physician due to cost; and have worse self-rated health. Barriers to addressing these disparities are two-fold: primary care physicians lack sufficient guidance on health needs of people with disabilities, and caretakers, who are often either family members or conservators, find themselves stretched thin with responsibilities. To address these two groups of individuals, an interactive infographic was created using the online tool called Venngage. Infographics have been shown to be an effective way to communicate health information to wide populations of people. The infographic features introductory text, key statistics on disability health in the state of Connecticut, and hyperlinks to resources for health care providers and caregivers. Qualitative interviews confirmed the need for such an infographic as a way to close equity gaps and improve health education. The infographic is published online and available to local healthcare providers and community organizations. Next steps include validating the infographic via surveys and focus groups.
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Contraceptive Education and Resource Provision in Male-dominated Rural Family Medicine Clinic
Christine E. Horn
Many women, particularly adolescent women, are uncomfortable discussing sexual health and contraception options with male providers and prefer to see female providers; however, in rural areas, there are barriers to seeing female providers including low physician density, long travel distances to clinics, and long waitlists. The project's primary goal was to bridge the knowledge gap surrounding contraception among adolescents in a rural area of Vermont, the Mad River Valley, while ensuring that healthcare providers at the local male-dominated family medicine office, CVMC Mad River, are equipped with up-to-date information regarding contraception prescribing recommendations. The project entailed 1) creation of a handout for patients with easily comprehendible information regarding contraceptive options as well as additional educational resources, 2) presentation of the current recommendations regarding contraceptive prescribing practices to the physicians at CVMC Mad River to increase their comfort as well as the quality of their recommendations for patients. Special attention was given to ensuring that the content was age-appropriate, inclusive, and culturally sensitive, catering to the diverse needs of the target demographic.
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Travel Medicine in Primary Care
Morgan Howlett
Many people will choose to travel at some point in their life. Primary care providers can be well suited to care for patients prior to travel, however this is often a less common component of their day-to-day work so they may be less familiar with travel related resources. This project aimed to evaluate available resources and create an informational handout and an EPIC dot phrase for providers to utilize when providing travel related care.
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Pamphlet for identifying anxiety and initial coping strategies
William Hsu
Anxiety affects up to 1/3 of the population in their lifetime. The geriatric population is especially susceptible to anxiety due to comorbid conditions and limitations in mobility. Anxiety is also difficult to identify, with mental health literacy with regards to anxiety being limited. This project aims to education patients on common symptoms of anxiety and at home interventions that can be initiated with helping to manage anxiety.
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Weighty Words: Addressing Weight Bias in Primary Care
Jharna Jahnavi
Weight bias in healthcare impacts a great proportion of patients. In some ways, weight bias often goes unaddressed compared to other forms of discrimination and spans across diverse groups of people resulting a double burden of bias in patients with intersecting marginalized identities. It is essential that providers and healthcare workers are better trained in building inclusivity for patients of all weights and body types to improve healthcare access and acceptance. Patients who experience weight bias in the office are less likely to return for routine preventative care and less likely to feel safe and comfortable with their providers. This project addresses issues in cultural competency as well as medical practice transformation (AHEC scholars core topics)
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Promoting Safe Sex Practices and Sexually Transmitted Infection Prevention in the Adolescent Population in Ridgefield, CT
Gina Jin
Adolescents are a uniquely at-risk population for the spread of preventable sexually-transmitted infections. Direct lifetime medical costs of sexually transmitted infections (per CDC) is nearly $16 billion in the United States. Nearly half (46%) of all new STIs in the country occur among young people (ages 15-24). Because of this, effective STI prevention in the adolescent population is important and should be further investigated.
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Healthy Food Access and Education
Elizabeth Kelley
Providing resources and educational materials to families about healthy foods
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Access to PrEP in Plattsburgh, New York (CVPH Family Medicine)
Kelly Knight
This project examines ways to increase access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in Plattsburgh, New York (located in Clinton County). After a review of the current literature on the subject and interviews with community members, an intervention was conducted at CVPH Family Medicine. EHR tools were generated and distributed to providers in the practice, with the goal of increasing the distribution of patient education materials about PrEP.
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Addressing Non-Emergent Medical Transportation Barriers For Rural Vermont Patients
Casey D. Krueger
Access to transportation is a Social Determinant of Health, yet many rural Vermonters face barriers to adequate transportation. Consequently, patients face difficulties accessing primary care and completing recommended health screenings. Destigmatizing ride programs and effective communication are key components of connecting patients with transportation resources. This project sought to develop a reference tool for clinic staff to improve communication about transportation barriers with patients and ultimately improve health outcomes.
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Empowering Providers to Treat Menopause
Aranshi Kumar
This project created a brochure designed to empower providers to sift through the myths surrounding prescribing for the treatment of menopause.
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Improving Retinopathy Screening for Patients with Diabetes: Optometrists Accepting New Patients On Medicaid +/- Interpreter Services
Kassondra M. Little
For patients with diabetes, screening for microvascular complications like retinopathy requires annual retinal photography or dilated fundoscopy to identify and mitigate processes that can cause preventable blindness. Yet, by measures at the state and federal level, the percent of patients achieving this care is below target. At the Community Health Centers of Burlington (CHCB), the barriers responsible for this include uncertainty among patients and providers about which local optometry offices accept Medicaid, are scheduling new patients and have interpreter services available. This project aimed to improve retinopathy counseling, the achievement of retinopathy screening and the time burden placed on providers and other CHCB staff by creating a list of optometrists in Chittenden County that are currently providing diabetic retinopathy screening, accepting new patients on Medicaid, and whether or not interpreter services are available on site. This list was then distributed to CHCB providers and practice managers to reference in counseling patients.
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Dinner Table Talks: How healthy eating behavior and body positivity start at home
Megala Loganathan
Body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and unhealthy eating behaviors all share a large sociocultural component. A family medicine practice is the perfect place to start educating patients about their attitudes surrounding food and how the effects of their relationship with food and their bodies can be felt in the home environment. Hearing many patients share that their mental and physical health struggles stemmed from how they learned to perceive things as children inspired me to take advantage of the trickle down effects of patient education. The goal of this project is to make and distribute a pamphlet that addresses ways to improve eating culture and body image and to recognize and separate nutrition and emotional eating. I hope that this intervention not only educates patients but promotes a healthier home environment for the rest of the members in a household/community.
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Safer Prescription Opioid Use in the Greater Danbury Area
Ying K. Loo
Opioid use disorder continues to be a major public health concern worldwide, with over 16 million people affected, and is associated with increased health care costs, reduced quality of life, lost productivity, and loss of life due to opioid overdose deaths. The neurobiology and susceptibility for opioid dependence and addiction is not well-understood by patients, and the lack of understanding of the safe use of prescription opioid regarding its intended effect of pain-relief versus other potential side effects and withdrawal symptoms may lead to misuse. This community health improvement project aims to empower patients and their family members to better understand indications for opioid use, improve awareness of potential for addiction, how to recognize signs and symptoms of misuse, and how to manage their opioid use through safe storage and disposal practices.
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