Christiana Care Health System Value Institute       

Christiana Care Value Institute Newsletter  |  Issue 3, Fall 2015


Seema Sonnad
In Tribute      

Seema S. Sonnad

It is with great sadness that we announce the tragic loss of our colleague, mentor and friend, Seema S. Sonnad, director of Health Services Research for the Value Institute. Seema died on May 27, 2015, in Renton, Wash., after suffering cardiac arrhythmia while running an ultra-marathon.

Seema joined Christiana Care Health System in 2012, taking on a pivotal role in the development of the recently established Value Institute. As director of Health Services Research, Seema was instrumental in helping the Value Institute achieve some early milestones that have been critical to its success, including the drafting of the Value Institute Strategic Plan, the creation of two Value Institute Annual Reports, and developing the Value Institute Scholars and Student Intern programs.

"Seema invigorated our research program with innovation, scholarship and mentorship," said Janice Nevin, M.D., MPH, president and CEO of Christiana Care. "In her career, she participated in research leading to more than 140 peer-reviewed publications, including work in surgical outcomes, women in academic medicine, technology diffusion, meta-analysis, and guidelines implementation."

Seema advocated for inter-departmental and inter-institutional collaborations to advance the practices at Christiana Care. In addition to her many investigator-initiated projects, she built inter-disciplinary networks around the health system and supported collaborative efforts to help others develop their own research portfolios in departments such as Emergency Medicine, Heart & Vascular Health, Internal Medicine, Cancer Care, Surgery and Trauma.

Seema’s role at the Value Institute allowed her to combine her creativity and training with her desire to apply research findings in real-world settings, while continuing to mentor trainees and junior faculty.

“Seema loved teaching but will be remembered best as a generous mentor and champion of women and minorities in science, medicine and research,” said colleague and friend, Jennifer Goldsack, MChem, MA, MS, MBA.

She championed collaboration and development of new investigators, working as director of mentoring for both the Delaware CTR-ACCEL program’s Mentoring, Education, and Career Development core as well as the Delaware IDeA Network of Biomedical Research (INBRE) student intern program. She also was an active participant in the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance, the Delaware BioScience Association through their women in STEM initiatives, and through various internal efforts including the annual Focus on Excellence program.

Within the Value Institute, Seema was a highly respected director who led by example and a dedicated mentor who cared deeply about the career progression of her junior faculty. “Seema was an inspiration for our team both professionally as women developing our careers in health services research and personally as a model for leading a balanced and fulfilling life,” said Kimberly Williams, MPH, Value Institute research associate in Health Services Research.

Outside of work, Seema was an accomplished horseback rider, a talented dancer, a lighthearted yogi and phenomenal endurance runner. In recent years, Seema enjoyed becoming part of the ultra-running community and travelled all over the country to compete with new friends.

Seema was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., on January 27, 1963. She completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford University (’84), masters’ degrees at the University of Washington (’88) and Stanford (’92), and earned her Ph.D. in Health Services Research and Policy Analysis at Stanford (’97). Before embarking on her research career, Seema co-founded a medical diagnostics company and worked in business development at Stanford University Hospital.

Her first academic appointment was at the University of Michigan where she founded and co-directed CHOICES, an outcomes research core lab for the medical school. In 2002, Seema moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where she created and directed a newly established health services research program in the Department of Surgery.

Seema was an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research and the Society for Medical Decision Making. She served as a reviewer and advisor for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and, most recently, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Several moving tributes to Seema have been written by colleagues and friends and we encourage you to read them here: American Journal of Managed Care, Leonard Davis Institute, Society of Medical Decision Making, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and Eventing Nation.

Seema is survived by her beloved husband and ballroom dancing partner of 12 years, Henry Glick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania; by her father, Subhash Sonnad; by her brother Raul and his wife Kathy; by her two nieces, Emina and Hanna, and nephew Hayden; and by countless colleagues and friends who will continue to be inspired by her intelligence, courage, generosity and kindness.

To honor the rich legacy that Seema left behind, the Seema S. Sonnad Ph.D. Memorial Fund for Young Investigators was established through very generous gifts by Seema's friends and family to honor Seema’s distinguished career and her passion for research and mentoring. The funds will be used to recognize and support Christiana Care investigators early in their research careers who demonstrate exceptional promise towards developing and delivering innovative solutions to our nation’s most pressing health care issues.

Gifts to memorialize Seema’s dedication to young investigators may be directed to:

Seema S. Sonnad Ph.D. Memorial Fund for Young Investigators
The Value Institute
Christiana Care Health System
P.O. Box 1668
Wilmington, DE 19899

For more information about this memorial fund, please contact the Office of Development, Christiana Care Health System at 302-327-3305 or via email.

Donations also can be made to the Seema Sonnad Junior Rider Development Fund, c/o USEA, 525 Old Waterford Road NW, Leesburg, VA 20176.

To honor Seema, we call upon our leaders, colleagues and friends to tackle the hard questions; to strive to improve both health and health care; to translate and disseminate new discoveries; to promote collaboration and communication; and commit to sharing your knowledge and skills through mentorship.


Spring 2015 Symposium
In the News      

Fall Symposium on Transitional Care follows Successful Spring Symposium on Empowering Communities to Eliminate Health Care Disparities


Mary Naylor

The Value Institute will host the Fall Symposium, “Transitional Care: Bridging the Gap for at Risk Populations” on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015 from 10 a.m. to noon at the John H. Ammon Medical Education Center’s main auditorium. The keynote speaker is Mary D. Naylor, Ph.D., FAAN, RN, Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and director of NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania.

As the chief architect of the Transitional Care Model, Naylor’s work focuses on the unique needs of chronically ill older adults and their family caregivers while offering high quality, cost-effective, evidence-based solutions to address a major health concern in the United States and across the globe.

Naylor is the latest in a line of global and national experts who have spoken at Value Institute symposia, which are designed to advance the Christiana Care Way through a strong emphasis and expertise in population health, fully integrated and supported service lines, and leveraging value-based payment models to achieve Optimal Health, Exceptional Experience and Organizational Vitality.

This year’s Value Institute Spring Symposium, “Eliminating Health Care Disparities”, featured distinguished experts – Lisa Cooper, M.D., MPH, and Giselle Corbie-Smith, M.D., MSc. – who have succeeded in engaging underserved communities and addressing the health care disparities they face. Held May 19th at the Ammon Center, the Spring Symposium drew nearly 250 participants.

Eric V. Jackson, Jr., M.D., MBA, associate director of the Value Institute, hosted the Spring Symposium in collaboration with Rosa M. Colon-Kolacko, Ph.D., MBA, chief diversity officer, senior vice president and executive director of Christiana Care’s Learning Institute, and LeRoi S. Hicks, M.D., MPH, vice chair of the Department of Medicine.

“Achieving optimal health is about more than what happens in the four walls of a hospital, it’s about what happens in the community,” Janice Nevin, M.D., MPH, Christiana Care’s president and CEO, said at the Spring Symposium, . “We need to embrace that. In an environment where we are talking about value, population health and patient experience, ‘patient experience’ is about every person we serve. We are reframing how we think about the people we serve to understand and anticipate their needs, so we can create a culturally competent system of care that addresses the disparities that currently exist.”

Dr. Cooper, a James F. Fries Professor of Medicine and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Health Disparities, set the stage for discussion by defining health disparities and health equity:

“Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged patients. Health disparities are pervasive. They affect mortality, quality of life, health care costs; they impact us all. To address them, you have to understand how they originate,” she said.

“Health equity is when everyone has the opportunity to attain his full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances.”

Dr. Corbie-Smith, Kenan Distinguished Professor for the Department of Social Medicine and Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, discussed how health equity can be achieved by addressing social determinants of health – specifically, neighborhood and built environment, health and health care, economic stability, social and community context, and education.

“Where a person lives can change life expectancy by 15 years, income by 10 years, education by nine years and race by seven years,” said Dr. Corbie-Smith, also director of the Program on Health Disparities at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina.

The Value Institute Spring Symposium concluded with a panel discussion about health disparities and work being done within Christiana Care to address them.

After the symposium, Drs. Cooper and Corbie-Smith met with scholars and staff from the Value Institute to answer specific questions about their work and about conducting research on health care disparities and equity.

Dr. Jackson, also the director of the Center for Health Care Delivery Science, said “partnerships are critical to our ability to successfully eliminate health care disparities. Only through partnerships can we create innovative, effective, affordable systems of care that our neighbors value.”

      
Fall Symposium
The Value Institute will host the Fall Symposium, “Transitional Care: Bridging the Gap for at Risk Populations” on Monday, Oct. 5 from 10 a.m. to noon at the John H. Ammon Medical Education Center’s main auditorium. The keynote speaker is Mary D. Naylor, Ph.D., FAAN, RN, Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and director of NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania.

Registration is now open.
Clinical Innovations

Health Care Delivery Science

Discharge Process Improvement Project Aims to Enhance Inpatient Experience and Optimize Hospital Stays

Christiana Care Health System has launched an initiative intended to optimize efficiency and provide an exceptional inpatient hospital experience, from admission to discharge, for patients and providers alike. Value Institute researchers are contributing their analytics expertise to the project, gathering and analyzing data and making recommendations to help achieve the initiative’s key goals.

The study, which is being conducted in medical and surgical units at Christiana Hospital, focuses on making changes in six key areas related to providing patients with efficient, high-quality care and potentially shorter hospital stays:
  • determining how soon medical histories are gathered from high-risk patients upon admission;
  • identifying their actual time in the hospital compared to the industry-standard estimated length-of-stay based on their diagnosis;
  • determining whether appropriate data related to the patient’s diagnosis, goals for discharge and post-discharge needs is collected and used properly;
  • ensuring that all necessary patient information is readily available to their care team during rounds so that their plan of care, goals and readiness for discharge can be discussed;
  • ensuring post-discharge medication needs are understood and prescriptions ready before the patient’s day of discharge; and
  • ensuring all discharge requirements are met on the day of discharge so the patient can be released in a timely fashion.
The Value Institute is responsible for gathering and analyzing data that can measure progress in those areas, focused largely around five major metrics:
  • discharge efficiency, as determined by the number of discharges in a 24-hour period divided by the census at the beginning of that period;
  • provider satisfaction with performance improvement interventions measured through a new REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) survey;
  • patient satisfaction, as measured by looking at responses to specific questions on HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) patient experience questionnaires;
  • medical history efficiency, which refers to the timely completion of medical histories for high-risk patients at admission; and
  • length-of-stay, as compared to estimated length-of-stay benchmarks.
During the data analysis process, Value Institute researchers will cross-check secondary tiers of data that factor into the major metrics, ensuring they are aligned to measure progress in the key study areas, and that they create a holistic rather than segmented view of the issues and interventions.

Value Institute researchers also will be responsible for making recommendations to translate the analytics into effective operational changes. Computer simulation capabilities within the Value Institute allow them to test the outcome of possible recommendations. For example, researchers can test whether adding an extra full-time staff member could help improve discharge efficiency, or whether bottlenecks in the system come from some other aspect of the process.

The project began in February and is scheduled to run until April 2016.

Collaborators: Terri Corbo, Pharm.D., BCPS, FASHP, Vice President, Pharmacy Services, Department of Administration; Mike Eppehimer, MHSA, Senior Vice President, Department of Medicine; LeRoi Hicks, M.D., MPH, Vice Chair, Department of Medicine; Tze Chiam, Ph.D., Associate Director of Research Informatics, Value Institute; Chris Corbo, Corporate Director, Benefits, Human Resources; Eric V. Jackson, Jr., M.D., MBA, Director, Health Care Delivery Science, Associate Director, Value Institute; Joanne McAuliffe, DNP, MSN, BSN, RN, OCN, NEA-BC, Vice President, Patient Care Services; Shirley Moran, MS, RN , NE-BC, Director, Patient Care Services; Patty Resnik, RRT-NPS, MBA, FACHE, CPHQ, CPUR, Vice President, Quality and Care Management; Tim Shiuh, M.D., FACEP, Emergency Medicine, Associate Emergency Medical Services Medical Director for New Castle County; Elizabeth Schreppler, manager, IT.

Health Services Research

Data Sharing Project Engages Patients

Patients are increasingly demanding information and accountability from health care providers to reduce the imbalance of information, or “information asymmetry,” between the two. Simultaneously, a growing body of evidence suggests that providing health care organizations with feedback on their performance helps patients achieve optimal health and provides them with an exceptional experience.

A pair of studies recently conducted at Christiana Care tested these concepts to see whether sharing quality and safety data – including process, system performance and patient outcome measures – with patients and their visitors during a hospital stay could engage them and improve the quality, safety and experience of care they receive.

data sharing project The first study, completed in December, focused on understanding patient preferences for receiving quality and safety data during a hospital stay. A multidisciplinary team with members from data acquisition, nursing quality and safety, infection prevention, patient experience and the Value Institute reviewed monthly unit-level data reports from 12 inpatient units – medical, surgical, step-down, post-partum and intensive care units at both Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital – to develop a list of possible data that could be shared with patients to empower them and encourage engagement. Using feedback from the Patient and Family Advisory Council and interviews with patients and visitors, researchers narrowed the list to data that had the highest potential for empowerment, was easily understood and perceived to be most useful by patients and visitors. Patient feedback also was used to determine the best potential ways to display the data to engage patients.

Using results of the first study, researchers subsequently developed and tested an interactive module that allowed data from topics selected in the first study to be displayed on patients’ in-room televisions using the GetWellNetwork. Topics included hand hygiene, patient falls, pressure ulcers, pain management, and seven-day readmission metrics. The modules were tested in five inpatient units.

Preliminary results of the second study indicate staff and patients alike supported sharing quality and safety data to increase data transparency and reduce information asymmetry. While only two module topics – hand hygiene and patient fall rates – improved during the testing of the modules, as a result of the data sharing, patients said they were interested in the information and intended to change their behavior, such as asking more questions of their care team.

Collaborators: Jennifer Goldsack, MChem, MA, MS, MBA, Research Associate, Value Institute; Peter Lodato, MPH, Research Intern, Value Institute; Christopher J. Mascioli, Research Intern, Value Institute; Seema S. Sonnad, Ph.D., Director, Health Services Research, Value Institute; Susan Mascioli, Director, Nursing Quality & Safety, Quality, Patient Safety and Population Health Management.

Center for Outcomes Research

Researchers Show Health Benefits of “Holding the Salt”

William Weintraub Although it is widely known that excess salt can cause unhealthy blood pressure levels, researchers with the Center for Outcomes Research concluded that excess salt intake also wreaks havoc on many other organs.

Consuming too much salt also can adversely impact the heart, kidneys, blood vessels and brain, according to a research review published in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology by William Weintraub, M.D., MACC, FAHA, FESC, John H. Ammon Chair of Cardiology at Christiana Care and director of the Value Institute’s Center for Outcomes Research, and William Farquhar, Ph.D., chair and professor of the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory at the University of Delaware, which partnered with Christiana Care on the research.

“Our goal is to arm patients and their families with the information they need to make healthy decisions about their diets so they can live healthy lives,” Weintraub said. “Other research has established the unhealthy impact of increased salt intake on blood pressure, but this review goes beyond those findings to shine a light on the unhealthy impact excess salt intake causes on several other organs.”

Specifically, the review of 100-plus studies by Weintraub and Farquhar found that excess salt intake can cause serious health problems, even in the absence of blood pressure complications.

Increased salt intake can cause the following:
  • in the heart, an enlargement of the walls of the main pumping chamber, forcing the chamber to work harder, and thereby increasing the risk for cardiovascular problems;
  • in the kidney, an increase in protein excretion as well as a hindrance of the rate of waste filtration from the blood;
  • in the blood vessels, a disruption of the ability of its inner lining to function properly; and
  • in the brain, the unnecessary activation of the fight-or-flight response, which can result in cascade of health problems.
According to a 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 97 percent of U.S. adults consumed more sodium than recommended by the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Weintraub and Farquhar conclude that a coordinated, population-wide effort should be launched to reduce the intake of sodium that is inclusive of health advocacy groups, food processers, restaurants and public policy makers.

Christiana Care’s Center for Outcomes Research features researchers with established expertise in clinical, population health and cost-effectiveness research. The center focuses on the impact of alternative approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease to help patients achieve optimal health. The study was supported through the Delaware Clinical and Translational Research Program. Claudine Jurkovitz, M.D., MPH, senior physician scientist at the Value Institute also served as a Christiana Care author on the study.

Center for Quality & Patient Safety

Total Joint Replacement and Cervical Spine “Bundles” Improve Care

In collaboration with multiple departments, the Center for Quality & Patient Safety began the journey at Christiana Care from volume to value-based payment by implementing two ‘bundles’ – Total Joint Replacement and Cervical Spine surgeries – under Model 2 of Medicare’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative.

This innovative new payment model combines reimbursements for defined episodes of care, along with financial and quality accountability, and aligns with Christiana Care’s strategic goals to achieve Optimal Health, Exceptional Experience and Organizational Vitality. Under the traditional Medicare payment model, hospitals, physicians, and post-acute providers, such as skilled nursing facilities, are each paid separately for the services provided to Medicare beneficiaries – a structure which rewards the quantity of services provided rather than quality, and leads to fragmented care with minimal coordination across settings. Bundling payments better aligns incentives, leading to higher-quality, and better-coordinated care at a lower cost.

In preparation for the January start, clinicians and key stakeholders redesigned clinical care and established a longitudinal care management infrastructure. Clinical redesign included developing instruments to: identify patients at higher risk for complications or readmission; implement evidence-based care pathways incorporating quality and timeliness standards; and utilize algorithms for post-discharge follow-up by Care Link – branded care management program for individuals – based on patient-specific intensity of service levels. Throughout each step, tracking tools in PowerChart – Christiana Care’s computerized provider order entry system – and Aerial – the Care Link software system – allow team members to continually monitor patient and population progress.

In the first eight months, the Care Link team served more than 1,040 Medicare Joint Replacement and Cervical Spine patients. Results to date indicate a half-day reduction in hospital length of stay, a greater than 10 percent increase in the percentage of patients discharged to the community, and a 30 percent reduction in 90-day readmissions.

Key quality and safety measures also show initial improvement. In Joint Replacement, more than 92 percent of patients ambulate within 24 hours of surgery, and the percentage of patients receiving blood is below the baseline period. Nearly 95 percent of Cervical Spine patients received prophylaxis to prevent blood clots. Longer-term functional outcomes that also are being monitored show substantial improvements in mobility and pain after discharge. Christiana Care is moving quickly to expand our participation in the initiative.

Collaborators: Michael Banbury, M.D., FACS, W. Samuel Carpenter III Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery; Patty Resnik, RRT-NPS, MBA, FACHE, CPHQ, CPUR, Vice President, Quality and Care Management; Leo Raisis, M.D., Medical Director for the Center for Advanced Joint Replacement, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; J. Rush Fisher, M.D., Chief of Spine Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; Yakov Koyfman, M.D., FICS, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; Craig Martine, RN, MSN, CCRN, program manager for Performance Improvement; Maria Albert, RN, Program Manager for the Center for Heart & Vascular Health ; and numerous other employees throughout Christiana Care Health System.

Center for Organizational Excellence

Patient Flow Working Group Identifies Solutions to Wait Times

An initiative spearheaded by the Value Institute’s Center for Organizational Excellence has shortened the wait times for patients at Christiana Care’s emergency departments, which are among the busiest in the nation.

The Patient Flow Working Group is a system-wide, cross-departmental team representing clinical and operational leaders from several of our new service lines. The team meets regularly to research new ideas to track progress on important projects aimed at improving patient access to care and helping Christiana Care achieve organizational vitality.

The working group, under the direction of Christiana Care Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Ferguson (now retired), created a daily scorecard and a weekly flow dashboard to help track boarding times and meets every two weeks to review and evaluate patient flow metrics. The group also shares updates on more than a dozen projects taking place in acute medicine, surgery and at the health system level to improve access to care and reduce Emergency Department boarding time.

Current projects include:
  • “Bed Ready to Left ED,” which reduced total daily boarding by 75 hours by decreasing the time it took to transfer a patient once a unit bed is ready;
  • “ED Door to Doc,” which reduced by 20 percent the length of time patients waited to see a provider upon arrival;
  • “Care Pathway Development-Acute Appendicitis,” which has increased the number of acute appendicitis patients who get from the ED to the operating room in less than eight hours to 83 percent from 50 percent; and
  • “Bed turnaround times/discharge notification,” in which a new process has been implemented that notifies staff that a bed needs to be changed as soon as the previous patient is being escorted from the room, saving up to 30 hours of boarding time each day, as well as decreasing the time needed to change beds and ready them for a new patient.
Overall, the results of these projects and others have shown an impressive 20 percent reduction in median boarding time per patient, even as Christiana Care has seen an increase in overall admissions from the ED compared to the previous year.

Collaborators: Gary Ferguson, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Christiana Care (Retired); Sharon Kurfuerst, Ed.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, Senior Vice President, Administration, Behavioral Health and Musculoskeletal Services; Vernon Alders, MHCDS, MBA, MSW, Corporate Director of Organizational Excellence, Director, Center for Organizational Excellence, Value Institute; Mike Eppehimer, MHSA, Senior Vice President, Acute Medicine and Neurosciences; Diane Talarek, RN, MA, NE-BC, Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services; Jesse Moncrief, Senior Operations Organizational Excellence Consultant; Kelsey Anderson, Senior Organizational Excellence Consultant; E. J. Johnson, Ph.D., ChE, MSChE, MBA, LSS MBB, Senior Organizational Excellence Consultant; and numerous other employees throughout Christiana Care Health System.

Value Institute Academy

Value Institute Celebrates 10 Years of Achieving Competency Today

VI acdemy

Leaders and participants in the Achieving Competency Today (ACT): Issues in Health Care Quality, Cost, Systems and Safety course celebrated the program’s 10th anniversary and praised ACT for making significant contributions to the culture of improvement within Christiana Care during an April ceremony that also celebrated the graduation of the program’s most recent class. During the event, course faculty and facilitators were recognized for their considerable contributions to the program’s success and sustainment over the past 10 years.

In 19 ACT courses held over the past decade, ACT interprofessional learners have collaborated on 70 performance-improvement projects, “proving that health care really is a team sport,” said Sharon Anderson, MS, BSN, RN, FACHE, senior vice president for Quality, Patient Safety, and Population Health Management and director of the Value Institute’s Center for Quality and Patient Safety. The course covers topics such as patient safety, improvement science, population health, team effectiveness and clinical economics.

The ACT course is provided through the Value Institute Academy, which applies a formalized approach to staff education and leverages experiential learning to facilitate changes in health care delivery. ACT teaches the PDCA: “Plan. Do. Check. Act.” framework for improvement which calls on participants to carefully think about an identified problem, review the data, investigate the medical literature, talk with stakeholders, assess root causes, and then design and test an intervention and measure the effect.

ACT participants include resident physicians, physician assistants, pharmacists, nurses, social workers, pastoral care, laboratory scientists, and others. Close to 500 learners have completed the program.

ACT was established as a four-week program funded with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a curriculum developed by Harvard University’s Partnerships for Quality Education. The Office of Quality and Safety and Academic Affairs partnered for the original grant funding in 2004. Since then, the program has been extended to 12 weeks and is now funded internally.

ACT has achieved national recognition, including a 2010 Innovation Award from the Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers.

Collaborators: Carol Kerrigan Moore, MS, FNP-BC, Safety & Quality Education Specialist, Value Institute Academy and Quality, Patient Safety and Population Health Management; Loretta Consiglio-Ward, MSN, Safety & Quality Education Specialist, Value Institute Academy and Quality, Patient Safety and Population Health Management; Theresa Fields, MSM, Education Coordinator, Value Institute Academy.

New Staff

    

Danielle Mosby, MPH
Research Associate

    

Devida Long
Project Coordinator, Health Care Delivery Science
Long is currently obtaining her Executive Masters in Public Health and Informatics at Emory University Rolling School of Public Health

    

Mitch Fawcett, MBA


Education Spotlight

Value Institute Internships Provide Drexel Public Health Students with Real-World Research Experience

The Value Institute has partnered with the Drexel University School of Public Health to provide graduate-level students with real-world experience in their fields of interest through the Value Institute Intern Program.

Five Drexel students recently completed internships at Christiana Care. Four of the students graduated with master’s degrees in biostatistics and one student graduated with a Master of Public Health degree.

The students partnered with Value Institute staff and scholars, providing graduate-level expertise in public health policy, epidemiology and biostatistics to assist in wide-ranging research projects aimed at improving the care of Christiana Care patients.
  • For his thesis, Peter Lodato, MPH, helped research how sharing quality and safety data with patients at their point of care can affect patient engagement, patient experience and other quality and safety measures as part of his thesis.
  • Manali Rupji, MS, completed her thesis project by studying the effects of palliative care services on heart failure patient admissions at Christiana Care.
  • As part of his thesis project, Akash Sheth, MS, helped the Emergency Department build a predictive analytic model for a program aimed at evaluating patients who return to the department within 72 hours.
  • Rachel Singleton, MS, returned after completing her summer practicum with the Value Institute to complete her thesis project, assisting with statistical analysis on a study of the management of patients on chronic opioid therapy in a primary-care setting with complex and chronic health conditions.
  • Krista Van Velzen, MS, also returned to complete her thesis after completing her practicum at Christiana Care last summer, working on a study evaluating the impact of a pharmacy discharge program on readmission rates and patient satisfaction.
The partnership between Drexel and the Value Institute Intern Program was established through the efforts of Drexel alumna and Value Institute Research Associate Kimberly Williams, MPH. The partnership has played a crucial role in the development of the Value Institute Student Intern Program as nearly one quarter of Value Institute interns have come from Drexel to work on projects at Christiana Care.

Other interns enter the Value Institute program as promising undergraduate students through the University of Delaware and through the newly established Harrington Trust for community-based research, a portion of which is dedicated to providing internship opportunities to underserved college students.

Outside of the Value Institute Intern Program, the Value Institute also supports student research through the Delaware IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program.

Getting Involved

The Value Institute is built on a model of high-level collaboration. The Value Institute partners with academic institutions, corporations, health care professionals, and thought leaders who share our commitment to improving health care value and delivery by turning evidence into reality. We cultivate relationships with patients, clinicians, sponsors, and professional colleagues who recognize the importance of improving health care delivery and health outcomes, organizational excellence, and quality and safety.

You can partner with the Value Institute on collaborative research, including clinical trials, database studies, and demonstration projects. Christiana Care providers can connect with the Value Institute by submitting a Consultation Request. One of our team members will then contact you to discuss your research plans. Value Institute staff members are actively involved in 75 research projects in a variety of disciplines.


Contact: Email Sarahfaye Heckler or call 302-733-5868.

Awards

Educator and Researcher Recognition Awards

Jennifer Goldstein, M.D., MSc, a Christiana Care Value Institute scholar, Department of Medicine faculty member and Christiana Care Hospitalist Partner physician, received a Milton W. Hamolsky Junior Faculty Scientific Presentation Award at the Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM) meeting in April in Toronto, where the theme for the event was “Generalists in Teams: Adding Value to Patient Care, Research and Education.” The award is given to Junior Faculty whose abstracts are judged to be the most outstanding among those submitted by Junior Faculty members of SGIM.

Dominique Comer, PharmD, MS, senior clinical researcher, Health Economics and Outcomes, Value Institute, received the Rising Star Researcher Award, which is given for excellence in the field of research to an early-career researcher who demonstrates promise to become a future leader in their field of scholarship.

Eric V. Jackson, Jr., M.D., MBA, associate director of the Value Institute and director of the Center for Health Care Delivery Science, has been appointed to the World Health Organization Committee on Population Health.

Eric V. Jackson, Jr., M.D., MBA, associate director of the Value Institute and director of the Center for Health Care Delivery Science, Omar A. Khan, M.D., MHS, FAAFP, associate vice chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine, medical director for Community Health & the Eugene duPont Preventive Medicine & Rehabilitation Institute, Richard J. Derman, M.D., MPH, FACOG, Marie E. Pinizzotto, M.D., Endowed Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Daniel J. Meara, M.D., D.M.D., chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery & Hospital Dentistry, program director of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency and director of Research, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery have been appointed to the G4 Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma and Anesthesia Care (G4 Alliance), which builds a common platform for international and local stakeholders to contribute to the development of a civil society response and global accountability framework to support the implementation of the recently-passed World Health Organization resolution on surgical care and anesthesia.

Selected Publications

Drees M, Wroten K, Smedley M, Mase T, Schwartz JS. Carrots and sticks: Achieving high healthcare personnel influenza vaccination rates without a mandate. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2015 Jun; 36(6):717-24. PMID: 25721404.

Mapp A, Goldsack J, Carandang L, Buehler JW, Sonnad SS. Emergency Codes: A study of hospital attitudes and practices. Journal of Healthcare Protection Management. 2015; 31(2):36-47.

Michalec B, Reinhold N, Dressler R, Laskowski-Jones L, Adarve E, Elliot D. Barriers and facilitators to interprofessional-interdepartmental interventions: Unearthing department culture. American Journal of Medical Quality. Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2015 Mar-Apr; 30(2):126-34. PMID: 24443319.

Miller K, Capan M, Wu P, Jackson EV, Arnold R. Operationalizing sepsis alert design and clinical decision support: Developing enhanced visual display models. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care. 2015; 4(1):103-109. DOI:10.1177/2327857915041032.

Selected Presentations

Capan M, Locke R, Value Institute and Neonatology Research Team. A goal programming approach for nurse scheduling in the neonatal intensive care unit. Presented at: INFORMS HEALTHCARE; 2015 Jul 29-31; Nashville TN.

Moore C, Consiglio-Ward L, Bhamidipati S. A team of experts is not an expert team: Optimizing interdisciplinary rounds communication. Workshop at: TeamSTEPPS National Conference; 2015 Jun 16-18; Denver, CO.

Howard-Smola S, Rahmer B, Jackson EV, Jurkovitz C. Medical home without walls: Patient engagement model informing a randomized clinical trial. Poster presented at: Academy Health Annual Research Meeting; 2015 Jun 14-16; Minneapolis, MN.

Arnold R, Elliot B, Zhang Z, Schultz K, Coletti C, Jackson E, Weintraub W. Non-invasive versus invasive resuscitation for severe sepsis: A comparative effectiveness assessment of associated outcomes. Presented at: Society of Academic Medicine Annual Meeting; 2015 May 12-15; San Diego, CA.

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