Shared medical appointments (SMA) help patients learn skills to self-manage chronic medical conditions. While this model of care delivery is thought to improve access to care with an efficient use of healthcare providers' time, many healthcare teams struggle to implement this healthcare model. Guidance and training resources on the implementation of SMAs is expected to improve adoption, implementation and sustainability of SMAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Shared medical appointments (SMAs) in heart failure (HF) are medical visits where several patients with HF meet with multidisciplinary providers at the same time for efficient and comprehensive care. It is unknown whether HF-SMAs can improve overall and cardiac health status for high-risk patients with HF discharged from acute care.
Methods And Results: A 3-site, open-label, randomized-controlled-trial was conducted.
Background: Electronic health record (EHR) transitions are known to be highly disruptive, can drastically impact clinician and staff experiences, and may influence patients' experiences using the electronic patient portal. Clinicians and staff can gain insights into patient experiences and be influenced by what they see and hear from patients. Through the lens of an emergency preparedness framework, we examined clinician and staff reactions to and perceptions of their patients' experiences with the portal during an EHR transition at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is tasked with providing access to health care to veterans of military service. However, many eligible veterans have either not yet enrolled or underutilized VHA services. Further study of barriers to access before veterans enroll in VHA care is necessary to understand how to address this issue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe hub-and-spoke telehealth model leverages centrally located providers who utilize telehealth technology to bring specialized care to medically underserved areas. This model has the potential to promote equitable access to healthcare. However, few studies address how to facilitate the adoption and implementation of hub-and-spoke telehealth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFShared medical appointments (SMAs) offer a means for providing knowledge and skills needed for chronic disease management to patients. However, SMAs require a time and attention investment from health care providers, who must understand the goals and potential benefits of SMAs from the perspective of patients and providers. To better understand how to gain provider engagement and inform future SMA implementation, qualitative inquiry of provider experience based on a knowledge-attitude-practice model was explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Using patient audio recordings of medical visits to provide clinicians with feedback on their attention to patient life context in care planning can improve health care delivery and outcomes, and reduce costs. However, such an initiative can raise concerns across stakeholders about surveillance, intrusiveness and merit. This study examined the perspectives of patients, physicians and other clinical staff, and facility leaders over 3 years at six sites during the implementation of a patient-collected audio quality improvement program designed to improve patient-centered care in a non-threatening manner and with minimal effort required of patients and clinicians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To test the feasibility of using telehealth to support antimicrobial stewardship at Veterans Affairs medical centers (VAMCs) that have limited access to infectious disease-trained specialists.
Design: A prospective quasi-experimental pilot study.
Setting: Two rural VAMCs with acute-care and long-term care units.
J Eval Clin Pract
February 2018
Rationale And Objectives: One way to understand medical overuse at the clinician level is in terms of clinical decision-making processes that are normally adaptive but become maladaptive. In psychology, dual process models of cognition propose 2 decision-making processes. Reflective cognition is a conscious process of evaluating options based on some combination of utility, risk, capabilities, and/or social influences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is adapting to meet the changing needs of our Veterans. VHA leaders are promoting quality improvement strategies including Lean Six Sigma (LSS). This study used LSS tools to evaluate the Veterans Choice Program (VCP), a program that aims to improve access to health care services for eligible Veterans by expanding health care options to non-VHA providers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstronauts in orbit reported phosphenes varying in shape and orientation across the visual field; incidence was correlated with the radiation flux. Patients with skull tumors treated by (12)C ions and volunteers whose posterior portion of the eye was exposed to highly ionizing particles in early studies reported comparable percepts. An origin in radiation activating the visual system is suggested.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this study is to understand the effect of combat-associated conditions such as sleep deprivation (SD) on subsequent traumatic brain injury (TBI). Prior to TBI (or sham surgery) induced by controlled cortical impact (CCI), rats were housed singly in chambers that prevented rapid eye movement sleep or allowed unrestricted sleep (no SD). Sensorimotor function was tested pre-SD and retested on postoperative days (PDs) 4, 7, and 14.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVoltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs) are essential to neuronal excitation and signal transduction. They are multimeric in structure and comprised of an alpha subunit that functions as a calcium pore and two additional subunits: an alpha2delta subunit and a cytoplasmic beta subunit. To better understand the role of VGCCs in the retina we used immunohistochemical methods to determine the distribution of VGCC β subunits in normal and mutant mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Some forms of congenital muscular dystrophy are associated with cortical and retinal dysplasias. Protein O-mannose N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase 1 (POMGnT1) knockout mice, one of the mouse models of muscular dystrophy, exhibit a thinner retina with reduced density of retinal ganglion cells. This study is aimed to further characterize the knockout retina, with special emphasis on the inner limiting membrane, the basement membrane of the retina.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Tubby-like proteins (TULPs) are a family of four proteins, two of which have been linked to neurosensory disease phenotypes. TULP1 is a photoreceptor-specific protein that is mutated in retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited retinal disease characterized by the degeneration of rod and cone photoreceptor cells. To investigate the function of TULP1 in maintaining the health of photoreceptors, the authors sought the identification of interacting proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhosphenes ("light flashes") have been reported by most astronauts on space missions and by healthy subjects whose eyes were exposed to ionizing radiation in early experiments in particle accelerators. The conditions of occurrence suggested retinal effects of heavy ions. To develop an in vivo animal model, we irradiated the eyes of anesthetized wild-type mice with repeated bursts of 12C ions delivered under controlled conditions in accelerator.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRetinal prosthetics are designed to restore functional vision to patients with photoreceptor degeneration by detecting light and stimulating the retina. Since devices are surgically implanted into the eye, long-term biocompatibility and durability are critical for viable treatment of retinal disease. To extend our previous work, which demonstrated the biocompatibility of a microphotodiode array (MPA) for 10 to 27 months in the normal feline retina, we implanted normal cats with an MPA implant backed with either an iridium oxide or platinum electrode and examined retinal function and biocompatibility for 3 to 5 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmacologic treatment of diabetic retinopathy via eyedrops could have advantages but has not been successful to date. We explored the effect of topical Nepafenac, an anti-inflammatory drug known to reach the retina when administered via eyedrops, on the development of early stages of diabetic retinopathy and on metabolic and physiologic abnormalities that contribute to the retinal disease. Streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats were assigned to three groups (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Subretinal prosthetics are designed to electrically stimulate second-order cells, replacing dysfunctional photoreceptors in diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). For functional vision to occur, this signal must also reach central visual structures. In the current study, a subretinally implanted prosthetic was evaluated in the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat model of RP, to determine its capacity to activate the retinotectal pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProtein O-mannose beta1,2-N-acetyglucosaminyltransferase 1 (POMGnT1) is an enzyme involved in the synthesis of O-mannosyl glycans. Mutations of POMGnT1 in humans result in the muscle-eye-brain (MEB) disease. In this study, we have characterized a null mutation generated by gene trapping with a retroviral vector inserted into the second exon of the mouse POMGnT1 locus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectroretinography provides a useful noninvasive approach to evaluate cone pathway activity. Despite wide application of the cone ERG to characterize retinal function in transgenic mice and mouse models of human hereditary retinal disease, the cellular origins of the mouse cone ERG have not been well defined. Here, we address this issue using a pharmacological approach that has been previously applied to other species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent retinal prosthetics are designed to stimulate existing neural circuits in diseased retinas to create a visual signal. However, implantation of retinal prosthetics may create a neurotrophic environment that also leads to improvements in visual function. Possible sources of increased neuroprotective effects on the retina may arise from electrical activity generated by the prosthetic, mechanical injury due to surgical implantation, and/or presence of a chronic foreign body.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have used wild-type mice and mice possessing defects in specific retinal circuits in order to more clearly define functional circuits of the inner retina. The retina of the nob mouse lacks communication between photoreceptors and depolarizing bipolar cells (DBCs). Thus, all light driven activity in the nob mouse is mediated via remaining hyperpolarizing bipolar cell (HBC) circuits.
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