Katie MacDonald is a superstar in the world of patient advocacy and research.  And we can say proudly that she is one of our superstars too!  She is currently in the news at the University of Vermont for her leadership skills directing the nationwide Miles for Migraine Campaign  but she has also been noticed standing resolutely and speaking up on Capitol Hill in D.C as executive director of the Alliance for Headache Advocacy organization appealing for more research funding devoted to meeting the needs of the migraine community.  We are honored to have this smart, busy, passionate and caring person as a member of our IBH-PC stakeholder advisory group.  And we have valued and cherished her contributions and wisdom since before the IBH-PC study was funded and just shaping up as a research question and funding proposal.   Please join me in thanking Katie for for all that she does for patients, their families and communities, their health teams and the researchers devoted to finding better treatment options until they reach their ultimate goal of a cure.   And Katie, please let  us know what else our IBH-PC team can do to help! 

Check out this link by scrolling to page 12 to read Katie's personal story about how she got involved in healthcare transformation: https://public.fletcherallen.org/Newsletter/ONE_September_2019.pdf

Read more about Katie's efforts in D.C. to promote research funding: 
https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/headache-on-the-hill-2019/

Or for one stop shopping you can find out more at:  https://allianceforheadacheadvocacy.org/

If you experience migraines or have a loved one or patients who do, please check out this link to find out more about how to better manage migraine, how to help others and how to contribute to the "race" when Miles for Migraine shows up in your community:
https://www.milesformigraine.org/

Clinician engagement in research as a path toward the learning health system: A regional survey across the northwestern United States

Clinician engagement in research as a path toward the learning health system: A regional survey across the northwestern United States 

Elizabeth L Ciemins, Brenda L Mollis, Jeannine M Brant, Laurie A Hassell, Sandra Albritton, Paul Amoroso, Angela Lloyd, Jodi M Smith, Bethann M Pflugeisen, Katherine R Tuttle, Laura-Mae 
Baldwin

Introduction
Increased research engagement of frontline, community-based clinicians could result in greater research relevancy, increased likelihood of implementation into practice, and improved health care for patients. Establishment of learning health systems within health-care organizations may facilitate this process.

Methods
In 2016, the U.S. Northwest Participant and Clinical Interactions Network conducted a region-wide survey in four community-based health systems to identify barriers to clinician involvement in research and understand clinician interest and levels of engagement.

Results
Survey responses indicated broad interest in research’s value to patients (77% of respondents), contribution to clinical evidence (79%), and fulfillment of intellectual curiosity (77%). Engagement was not always correlated with interest. Top barriers included time (65%), support (34%), and getting started (32%).

Conclusion
In community health systems in the northwestern United States, clinician interest in research exists but with several significant barriers. Leveraging the learning health system movement may be one way to increase focus on research and address identified barriers.

DOI Link to Article

SAGE, August 18th 2019

*Anyone who would like to get a full copy of the PDF can ask the authors (Laura-Mae or Brenda) or Connie, and we will help. 

Kurt Stange honored in Annals of Family Medicine

Kurt Stange, MD, PhD, co-investigator in the IBHPC project, was also the founding editor of Annals of Family Medicine from 2005 through 2018. This week, Annals published a beautiful and well-deserved tribute to him written by Associate Editor John J. Frey III, MD. You can see it at: http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/4/290

- Ben Littenberg

Research Study Newsletter on Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care - Issue 04

Research Study Newsletter on Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care - Issue 03

Happy Spring Everyone!   It is a time at the University of Vermont when the wind, rain, sunshine, flora and fauna are busy getting the earth as fertile as possible for nourishing new beginnings.   Hopefully you can take a moment to pause and recognize signs of fresh starts that inspire good health and wellness.

Speaking of signs...we have a research study status report to share with you.   This report consists of a deck of slides which describes how our research project began and reveals a few early observations from baseline data provided by our participating patients and primary care clinical teams.   This data can't tell us whether our intervention is working to change patient care or patient health yet, but it can tell us where our research participants are starting from.  Just click on the blue link below to see the report.   Please let us know what questions or comments you have! 

IBHPC Spring 2019 Study Status Report

Research Study Newsletter on Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care - Issue 02

Progress Report - January 13, 2019

As we start the new year, there’s lots of progress to report about the IBHPC trial. As of today, we have 3,032 patients from 37 practices who have completed baseline records. 264 are not eligible for the main analysis because they came from the two Vanguard practices or are incomplete. That leaves 2,768 patients for our main analysis, or about 93% of our target. Records are still coming in, so we should easily meet the target of 3,000.

44 of the original 45 practices are still engaged. Alas, one had a change of heart. I’m disappointed, of course, but still very happy about our 98% retention rate.

We continue to struggle with getting the essential electronic health records (EHR) from 8 practices, but we seem to have made a breakthrough recently in connecting to some of them that have a particularly tricky EHR vendor and we are pushing hard on the others. I’m confident that we will have enough data to perform all our planned analyses, but I am looking forward to this phase of study administration to be over!

Other issues that we are working on include how to retain patients and practices for the upcoming mid-point and final data collections, reviewing proposals to use the IBHPC data for ancillary studies, and how best to disseminate our results when they are ready.

Many thanks, as always, for your interest and assistance. If you have questions or suggestions, please reach out!

Ben Littenberg

Principal Investigator