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  Preventive Medicine Screening Measures

  Isaac Adams

  Short-term Project

  In order to make progress towards long-term health on a community level, it is imperative to address health needs on a population basis and using a preventive strategy to prevent the development of more serious illness. With this in mind, this project aimed to create a poster providing easy to understand information to patients with regard to health screenings. Specifically, it addressed screenings for diabetes and pre diabetes, colon cancer, lung cancer, and breast cancer.

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  The Diabetes Template

  Samuel J. Aldous

  Short-term Project

  This presentation describes the construction of a diabetes follow up note template. This template was designed to streamline these visits for practitioners to provide a comprehensive amount of data collection with maximum efficiency. This should allow for more time for practitioners to spend talking to patients and managing their care rather than collecting details from different sections of the patient's chart.

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  Improving Dental Health Screening in the Primary Care Setting

  Kali Amoah

  Short-term Project

  Oral health is an important part of systemic health that is often overlooked by patients due to various barriers to dental care. Dental caries is a public health crisis and one of the most common chronic diseases globally. Poor oral health and the resulting inflammation caused by oral bacteria is associated with cardiovascular disease, pregnancy complications, poor glycemic control in diabetes mellitus, and many more conditions. The goal of this project is to increase dental health screening in the primary care setting and to provide a list of affordable dental clinics in Vermont that take Medicaid/ Medicare and offer sliding scale payment options. With increased dental health screening in primary care offices, the hope is to detect dental pathology earlier on in the disease course and connect patients with dental clinics that provide affordable dental care.

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  Neuro-inclusive care demonstration through vaccination clinic

  elizabeth barker

  Short-term Project
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  The Benefits of Outdoor Recreation and Selected Resources Around Hinesburg VT

  Micaila Baroffio

  Short-term Project

  Spending time outside has historically been associated with improved mental and physical health outcomes. However, research has shown that nature-based recreation has been decreasing in recent years. Healthcare providers hold a unique position in the ability to encourage patients to seek improvement in their health. Therefore, this research focused creating a pamphlet to improve awareness of the benefits of outdoor recreation and provide selected resources around Hinesburg VT.

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  Implementation LGBTQ+ Health Education Through Case-Based Learning

  Bradley A. Blansky

  Short-term Project

  Primary care graduate medical education programs often do not provide adequate training regarding the healthcare needs of the LGBTQ+ population. The purpose of this community project was to develop a case-based teaching session to help provide family medicine residents a basic understanding of LGBTQ+ healthcare. This didactic session was found to be an engaging and effective method of teaching physicians about LGBTQ+ health. Additional work is needed to further train physicians and other healthcare professionals about the challenges faced by marginalized populations in our healthcare system.

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  Increasing Mental Health Resource Access During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  Valerie Braddick

  Short-term Project
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  Community Services for Patient Referral Document

  Jett Choquette

  Short-term Project

  Patients have a need for referral to a variety of services that directly relate to their health and wellbeing that are not generally included in the traditional referral system of healthcare networks. These services include (but are not limited to) social work support, pandemic support, elderly services, LQBTQ+ services, intimate partner violence services, functional medicine, and substance use disorder and mental health support and treatment. Because these services are not part of the traditional healthcare referral system, healthcare providers may not have an up-to-date list of organizations and programs in the community that could provide these needed services. This is especially important in the current era when there has been increased turnover of healthcare workers at all levels leading to low institutional/community knowledge. To address this need, a community service patient referral document was developed after interviewing healthcare workers in the community and reviewing patient needs throughout the family medicine clerkship to inform resource selection.

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  A Quality Improvement project on Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy for transgender patients in a rural Vermont clinic

  James S. Contompasis

  Short-term Project

  A Quality Improvement project on Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy for transgender patients in a rural Vermont clinicA Quality Improvement project on Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy for transgender patients in a rural Vermont clinic that provided protocols and consent forms for masculining therapy to the practitioners at that clinic who wish to prescribe gender affirming hormone therapy (GAHT)

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  Adolescent Anticipatory Guidance

  Anna M. Corbalan

  Short-term Project

  This project focuses on creating an educational resource specifically for adolescents and young adults regarding the anticipatory guidance for this age group. Although adolescence is generally a healthy time for most, many health or social problems will start or peak during this time. Therefore, it is a crucial time to incorporate preventive guidance and increase health literacy to avoid unhealthy chronic behaviors in adulthood.

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  Covid-19, Cold, Flu? What To Know and What To Do

  Ryan Cournoyer

  Short-term Project

  A review of Covid-19 symptoms vs the common cold and influenza. Discusses what to do if you think you are sick and when to seek medical care. Helping prevent community Covid-19 transmission and influx of mildly symptomatic patients into primary care clinic and emergency rooms.

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  Diabetic Retinopathy Screening in Primary Care: Workflow Optimization

  Andrew DesLauriers

  Short-term Project
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  Basic At-Home Exercises for Common Areas of Pain

  Willie Dong

  Short-term Project

  Physical Therapy (PT) is often the first-line management for subacute MSK pain seen in the primary care setting. For various reasons patients may be opposed going to PT. For patients that are interested, there is often a latent period before an appointment can be made. Providing resources, including a pamphlet, with all-inclusive, simple at-home exercises may help to accelerate recovery.

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  Circumcision for the Male Infant: Patient Education and Cultural Humility

  Grace E. Eisenbiegler

  Short-term Project

  Male circumcision is a religious and cultural decision that has become increasingly medicalized. Many families make decisions about circumcision based on culture and family without true informed consent. There is a need for unbiased information, prior to delivery, about circumcision, so that families may make an informed decision that is right for them. A one page document was created as an addition to the clinic's pregnancy guide with information on risks and benefits of circumcision, complications associated with the uncircumcised penis, cultural significance, and care of the uncircumcised penis.

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  Referred by your PCP

  Lud H. Eyasu

  Short-term Project

  A complication of a small or new primary care office is difficulty in providing additional support for patients outside of the office visit. Some referral center do not assist patients referrals for mental health providers and services. This project set out to create a list of in-network psychiatrists that can be distributed to patients at a New Canaan, CT primary care office to facilitate these patients' quest to find a mental health provider.

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  Barriers to Implementation of Point-Of-Care Ultrasound in Primary Care: Interval Change

  Joel Feier

  Short-term Project
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  ADHD Evaluation and Diagnosis in the Primary Care Setting

  Sean R. Fox

  Short-term Project

  Our goal was to develop a comprehensive Epic template for the initial evaluation of ADHD in the primary care setting.

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  The File of Life: A Lifeline for First Responders in Fairfield County, CT

  Brittany Gilmore

  Short-term Project

  During a medical emergency, it can be difficult for first responders to obtain crucial medical information about their patients for a variety of reasons. The patient may be unconscious, have an altered mental status, or simply not know their medical history. This project aimed to increase awareness of the File of Life program, which many local Fire and EMS departments are implementing to improve their ability to deliver life-saving care.

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  Primary Care and The Housing Insecure in Central Vermont

  Hunter Goldsmith

  Short-term Project

  In this project, I performed a literature review of the research regarding the benefits of primary care on population health. I also looked at healthcare utilization and interviewed community members. I then surveyed individuals suffering from housing insecurity to determine if they were connected to primary care homes and if not the reasons they have not been able to be connected. Finally, I attempted to link interested individuals with local primary care offices to establish care.

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  Increasing Access to Advanced Care Planning Documentation

  Amy B. Golinker

  Short-term Project

  The purpose of this project was to determine the percent of the adult patient population at one family practice in Vermont with completed advanced care planning documentation available to health care providers and work to increase that percentage. The majority of this project was spent completing a chart review to find the advanced care planning documentation present in the current electronic health record, Epic, the previous electronic health record, ECW, or registered with the Vermont Advance Directive Registry. Efforts were also made to increase the percent of adult patients with advanced care planning documentation through conversations with patients during wellness and chronic care visits. Overall, in this practice approximately 14% of adult patients were found to have completed advanced care planning documentation which is less than the national average of approximately 33% of all adults. Discussion of further research on how to increase this percentage is ongoing.

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  Improving access to medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder in a rural Emergency Department

  Warren Grunvald

  Short-term Project

  Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is a growing epidemic throughout the United States and Maine has not been sparred by this. As the Emergency Department is a frequent location for people with OUD to interact with physicians it has been targeted as an opportunity to initiate Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) with Suboxone. This project details an effort to streamline this process and improve outcomes for patients interested in MAT.

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  Improving Access to Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in a Rural Emergency Department

  Warren Grunvald

  Short-term Project

  Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is a growing epidemic throughout the United States and Maine has not been sparred by this. As the Emergency Department is a frequent location for people with OUD to interact with physicians it has been targeted as an opportunity to initiate Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) with Suboxone. This project details an effort to streamline this process and improve outcomes for patients interested in MAT.

  Improving access to medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder in a rural Emergency Department

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  Addressing Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms in Response to External Stressors and Negative Affective States in Primary Care Settings

  Matthew C. Hanna

  Short-term Project

  Individuals respond to negative affective states, including depression and bipolar disorder, and external stressful events with a wide variety of adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms or a mixture of both. Maladaptive coping mechanisms include substance use and binge eating, as well as avoidance or withdrawal behaviors. Understanding how patients respond to external stressors and adapt to negative affective states, including depression and hypomania, via questionnaires seeking to elucidate coping mechanisms is of utmost importance to recognize patients at risk of substance use, binge-eating, and other maladaptive behaviors. Only through explicit identification of these mechanisms can providers work with patients to take steps to mitigate negative health effects of maladaptive coping behaviors via targeted patient education and formation of collaborative partnerships with patients.

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  Perceptions of Teleophthalmology

  Kisha Kalra

  Short-term Project

  One of the greatest burdens facing patients with eye-related pathologies is access to ophthalmologists in the area. Teleophthalmology is a way for eye examinations to be conducted in the easily-accessible primary care setting, with images sent to ophthalmologists for interpretation. This project addresses the perceptions of this model amongst patients and primary care physicians.

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  An Assessment of Skills Before Pills, A Series Promoting Lifestyle Medicine

  Kyle J. Kellett

  Short-term Project

  Lifestyle medicine seeks to treat the root cause of chronic medical conditions through lifestyle medications, including diet and exercise habits, tobacco and alcohol use, and mental health. Skills Before Pills is a novel, multidisciplinary, 8-week group appointment series aimed at promoting lifestyle change to address chronic medical conditions developed by the physicians at South Burlington Family Medicine. The aim of this project was to construct a quality improvement survey to collect patient feedback on the series with the goal of continually improving the course to promote long-term, positive, change in behavior.