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Showing posts from November, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving

In the spirit of the season, and in the spirit of gratitude, thank you all for advancing health through research at MedStar.  We have had a great year and none of this would have been possible without you!

Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends.  I hope you have a chance to take a moment during your festivities to reflect and be grateful for what we have and what we are doing each day to advance health.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and your loved ones.


Sharing My Mission Experience with Team Heart

We all work very hard and every now and then, it is good to step back and put it all into perspective.

Last week, I took a week off from work to fulfill something I have wanted to do for a long time -  I went to Africa to volunteer with Team Heart.  Team Heart is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to medical care in Rwanda. In a country with only 2 cardiologist (yes, only 2 in the entire country!) where rheumatic heart disease (a consequence of untreated strep throat) remains rampant, the need remains great for volunteers.

With support from the Rwanda Ministry of Health, our volunteer team brought new (laptop size) cardiac ultrasound machines to four hospitals and spent time working with the staff to train them to do echocardiograms to diagnose rheumatic heart disease and other cardiac abnormalities.  The clinical staff was amazing - they were so knowledgeable, dedicated and extraordinarily nice, all in the face of remarkably restricted resources - even things like uninterrupted electricity should not be taken for granted!

While they were very appreciative of my time and teaching, I feel that I received far more than I gave. 

Attached are a few pictures from my time in Butare University Hospital, a hospital in the southern part of Rwanda in which I spent most of my time.  In these pictures, you can see the hospital inpatient wards (typically with 8-10 patients per room).  The hospital (below) looks like a typical community hospital from the outside but has about 800 beds inside!  Below is also a picture of me with Dr. JP Sibomana, the internal medicine physician who is single handedly starting an echo service for the hospital.




Once a week physicians from across the hospital come together for a multi-disciplinary grand rounds.  In this photo, I was one of 3 lectures (involving internal medicine, ENT and Ob/GYN) on how to manage rheumatic heart disease and prosthetic valves in a women who is pregnant and in heart failure.
 

And it was not only about medicine.  The country is beautiful and full of life.  We took one day to drive through one of the national parks where there are all types of animals freely roaming, just as you would expect in Africa!




 

Investigator Orientation

Twice a year, we welcome MedStar investigators at the UTC offices for a full day of Investigator Orientation. Hosted by our Office of Research Development, Planning and Communications, the day is packed full of information to help investigators make the most of their work at MedStar.


The day covers the importance of research at MedStar to the structure of our Scientific Centers. Time is devoted to the proposal development stage and resources that MHRI has to offer investigators. We also cover how the EHR can be used to support your research.

It’s always a great day to meet other investigators and the team that MHRI has to support research. Thank you to our planning team and those who were able to attend. If you are interested in attending our spring orientation, contact Research@medstar.net.




Asking Questions

Guest Blogger: Eva HochbergerMarketing & Communications Coordinator, Office of Research Development, Planning & Communications

I was invited to attend the 2017 Mi2 Forum recently, and it always covers lots of ground in one day. This year’s event, called “Framechangers” gave me lots of food for thought in terms of what we can bring to the table in the future. There was an underlying theme of asking questions. Working for the research institute means that I work with associates and investigators who have made their career out of asking questions.

Donna Harris

What makes the Mi2 Forum stand out from other events is that they invite associates from every level and entity of MedStar Health. My table included a resident at MWHC (who does research!), a coordinator on our Health Services Research team, a member of the Organizational Effectiveness team, two outside guests and a lawyer. Bringing together all these perspectives to listen to speakers on topics ranging from neurosurgery and horses to interviewing on CNN or where we can get good ideas allows for all of us to grow.



So, what questions did I walk away with?
  1. Don’t only ask what’s the best way to do something, ask why are we doing it at all? (Donna Harris)
  2. How can we combine both intellect and imagination? (Frank Sesno)
  3. What are the coffee houses of the future? How do they foster collaboration and development? (Steven Johnson)
  4. Is there a way to think more like prey than a predator? (Allan Hamilton)
  5. Why is the Singularity always named Bob? (Michael Gilliam)

A "fireside chat" with Frank Sesno and Mark Smith
The event is also live-streamed and recorded, if you want to take some time and work on your professional development. The the livestream videos are available now, and fully polished videos will be coming soon at https://mi2.medstarhealth.org/hub/forum/

How Do Lobsters Grow?

Below is my monthly message for the November 2017 edition of the MHRI newsletter, Focus. You can view Focus online at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.


Friends and Colleagues,

Do you have any idea ‘How Do Lobsters Grow’?

This odd question was put forward at a physician leadership development course earlier this year and has stuck with me ever since. Many don’t realize this, but lobsters are soft, mushy creatures that live in a rigid, hard shell. The shell, obviously, can’t be too big nor too small, so this naturally begs the question...how do lobsters grow?

In a short, compelling video by Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, he explains that as the shell starts to become confining, the lobster feels increased pressure and grows uncomfortable. This stimulates the lobster to crawl under a rock, cast off the shell and produce a new one. The lobster will keep repeating this routine whenever the constraint of the hard shell causes discomfort and stress. He effectively makes the point that the stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is that it feels uncomfortable. That means that times of stress are also signals for times of growth.

Wow…That is a powerful message and has stayed with me. We all experience times of stress. Stressful experiences are often painful, frustrating and disheartening. They can bring out the worse in us, even when we don’t want it to. However, what if you keep Dr. Twerski’s lobster story in your head and recognize that these stressful times are actually times of growth? Wow, that changes everything!

I was thinking of Dr. Twerski’s video over the last few weeks as we finished our MHRI Fall Town Halls. A major portion of the meeting was dedicated to the IT investments MHRI is making to enhance our infrastructure for clinical trials across the system. In the last few months, we have: 1) gone live with OnCore, a clinical trial management system which handles all aspects of a trial from patient enrollment to sponsor billing, 2) started the installation of PowerTrials, a new feature in the Cerner EHR that will allow for viewing of clinical research information within a patient’s health record, 3) disseminated Vestigo, an IT platform for research pharmacists, across the system and 4) decided on a new IRB electronic system which we will install with our partners at Georgetown so all investigators, at Georgetown and MedStar, can use one IRB system.

That is a lot of change happening in a short period of time and will undoubtedly stress all members of the research team. While the implementation and roll-out of these systems has taken substantial planning with roadblocks along the way, it is the change that is necessary for us to keep growing as an organization. Times of stress are also the signals of growth. I am excited to think about our future-state when all of these IT platforms are fully implemented with automatic interfaces allowing for efficient management, improved communication and enhanced utility of clinical trials for all our patients. It hasn’t been easy, but we can at least thank lobsters for showing us how to grow!

Enjoy this month’s research e-newsletter and thank you for contributing to our growth!

Neil


Read Focus at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.

Protecting Future Patients through Research

Recently in Focus, we highlighted a project from A. Zach Hettinger, MD, MS, Medical Director and Director of Cognitive Informatics at MedStar Institute for Innovation (Mi2). The work was funded by a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). 
Much like the airline industry uses HRO as a safety net, “Context is Critical: Understanding When and Why EHR-Related Safety” will test the feasibility of using a black box methodology tied to EHRs. The official public profile has gone live on the AHRQ website!
This research has great potential for future patients, as it hopes to create evidence-based recommendations for safer EHR design that may be useful to all stakeholders, including healthcare teams. Congratulations to the research team and I look forward to seeing the results of this great work!
Airline black boxes are actually orange! Image from How Stuff Works