Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating Ways To Reduce Errors In Medication Reconciliations Performed By Nurses In A Rural Hospital Setting, Kalen T. Freeman

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Medication reconciliation, also known as “med recs”, are an important part of a patient’s care during their hospitalization. A med rec is when hospital personnel generate a list of the medications the patient takes at home. Med recs are vital in the hospital admission process because home medications need to be restarted at appropriate times to fully care for the patient. Also, mistakes in a home medication list can lead to serious consequences in the patient’s health. This study focuses on med recs being performed at Marcum and Wallace Hospital in Irvine, Kentucky. More specifically, the study explores the different …

Evaluation Of A Palliative Care Initiative On The African Continent: Responsibly Improving Access To Pain Treatment, J. Spencer Hirschi

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The African continent today faces a crisis of inadequate palliative care, in spite of the growing level of suffering of its citizens who are faced with debilitating diseases and injuries. Much of this problem stems from deeply ingrained attitudes towards opioids: while the American continent grapples with the effects of opioid overprescribing, physicians trained in Africa are taught that opioids are inappropriate for virtually all scenarios, and therefore they come to fear and avoid their use or simply remain untrained on them altogether. Patients fail to advocate for themselves out of submission to the doctor’s authority, governments remain apathetic to …

Impact Of Area-Under-The-Curve Monitoring For Vancomycin On Incidence Of Acute Kidney Injury In Orthopedic Patients, Kelli R. Keats

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Vancomycin is an antibiotic used regularly in hospitals across the world. The most concerning adverse effect of vancomycin is its documented effect on kidney function. This study examines the impact of two dosing strategies of vancomycin on patients’ kidney function at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Medical Center. It specifically focuses on patients on the orthopedic service because these patients traditionally receive higher doses of vancomycin for longer periods of time due to the severity of their infections, which puts them at an increased risk of vancomycin-induced nephrotoxicity compared to other patients.

This study will serve as a …

Everybody’S Working (But The Weakened): An Assessment Of Medicaid Work Requirements And Their Administrative Burdens, Samuel Misleh

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Although Medicaid work requirements are currently halted in both Arkansas and Kentucky, this analysis utilizes the data available to make an assessment and estimate of what Kentucky’s Medicaid enrollment will look like if work requirements similar to those Arkansas had are ever implemented. The relative severity of the administrative burden of such requirements provide a tool for comparison, and a difference-in-differences analysis of the change in Medicaid enrollment between Arkansas and West Virginia, a state that has not implemented and currently has no plans to implement Medicaid work requirements, provide the bases for this estimate. After coding the work requirements …

Impact Of Prescription Opioid Access Restrictions On Alcohol-Induced Mortality In Kentucky, Changwe Park

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are state policy tools to combat risky opioid prescribing. Since 2012, several states began to mandate PDMP use. As mandating use laws have settled down, evaluating potential adverse events becomes possible.

In this study, I focus on alcohol-induced mortality as a potential unintended consequence via substituting alcohol for prescription opioids, since alcohol and opioids are often concurrently misused as a part of pain self-management. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the unintended consequences of prescription opioid access restrictions on alcohol-induced mortality.

I compare the alcohol-induced mortality among adults during pre- and post-revision …