Current projects
There is a strong need for consistent, objective assessment among residency rotations in order to evaluate resident preparedness. This project studies family medicine residents in the Psychiatry rotation of the University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency program. Since 2013, there has been a pretest and posttest administered to the residents in order to assess knowledge gained during the rotation. In 2019, eight improvements were made to the assessment, including automatic and standardized scoring and attitudinal and feedback questions regarding the rotation experience. By assessing the residents’ attitudes toward psychiatry and mental illness, we hope to gain insight into how the rotation experience affects residents’ views on psychiatry and mental illness as a whole.
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The purpose of this study is to assess the hospital utilization rates of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency department services for patients enrolled (and prior to enrollment) in a rural, free primary care clinic in Selma, AL, including the costs of the hospital services versus the primary care services provided in the free clinic. From the free clinic, the names, dates of birth and first clinic visit date from 170 unique uninsured patients who had an initial clinic visit between 2017 and 2018 were extracted. The data from the free clinic was cross-referenced with data from the local hospital (inpatient visits, outpatient visits, and emergency department [ED] visits). The data that we have collected shows that patients of the free clinic (n=170) utilized the hospital’s ED less than they did prior to being seen at the free clinic. This evidence speaks the fact that when underserved populations have autonomous access to primary care, ED overcrowding and overutilization for ambulatory conditions decreases significantly.
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The nursing burnout project centers on identifying major burnout patterns for nurses and the differences in burnout profiles of nurses compared to other healthcare professionals. The project also aims to analyze the sources of stress and how healthcare workers respond to them in relation to burnout. Burnout rates are on the rise among healthcare workers, which can increase the risk of health concerns, as well as threaten the health and safety of patients. To examine nursing burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Study (MBI-GS) was distributed, representing three components: emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy. So far findings of this project have indicated that nurses experience burnout differently than other medical professionals.
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This project analyzes the effect that asynchronous telemedicine has on the quadruple aim of medicine. The goal of the quadruple aim of medicine is to increase patient satisfaction, decrease cost of care, increase quality of care, and increase provider wellbeing. We are currently in the process of gathering and interpreting results that we have acquired through a retrospective analysis of over one thousand abstracts (1,106). Our methods of obtaining this information information comes from running the 1,106 abstracts through the program “Rayyan” to determine which of these fit our criteria. Of the 1,106 abstracts, 111 match what we are looking for, and the full articles are currently being mined for the data within.
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The Ambulance-Based Telemedicine (AmBT) project focuses on understanding the feasibility of telemedicine as a form of healthcare in rural settings, specifically in Alabama. The goal of the triple aim of medicine is to analyze the cost of care for both patients and providers, patient and provider satisfaction, and the quality of care compared to traditional care. Prior to implementation, research had to be conducted to understand current literature on the topic. We found that not a lot of research discusses the feasibility of telemedicine in rural settings. Once implantation starts, we will begin to get hospital data to assess the feasibility of telemedicine as a form of healthcare in rural Alabama. This data will allow us a better understanding of telemedicine and its effectiveness in different settings.
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The TERM project focuses on the effectiveness of undergraduate research (UR), and how this effectiveness is measured/reported by other undergraduate research teams. Presently, there is a void of tangible, reliable literature relating to real outcomes of UR. Our team’s goal is to articulate that there is a lack of information on the subject, and to potentially fill the said ‘void’. We are in the beginning stages of writing our project’s first (possibly of multiple) paper, as we determine its overall direction and themes.
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Over 48,000 people commit suicide each year, and while suicide is still considered relatively a rare event, a primary care provider is the most sought after setting for suicidal patients and identifying suicidal behavior. Of those committing suicide, around 45% will have sought out guidance from their primary care provider within the month before their death. Suicidal individuals tend to seek out primary care providers over mental health specialists. With this project, we have looked into the realms of dentistry to further solve the problems of identifying suicidal behavior and preventing suicide. Dentists have the ability to notice physical features inside and around the oral cavity relating to stress and anxiety, but the goal of this project is to further educate occupants in the dental field on how to recognize suicidal traits and take the necessary steps to prevent suicide among their patients.