Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Pay-For-Performance In Five State Medicaid Programs: Lessons For The Nursing Home Sector, Edward M. Miller, Julia Doherty

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This project looks at the pay-for-performance program in five state Medicaid programs and lists the lessons that the Nursing Home Sector can learn from. They are: The federal government has traditionally sought to ensure quality outcomes through nursing home (NH) surveys conducted by state officials; Some states have begun to experiment with pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives, which provider higher Medicaid reimbursement to those facilities achieving desired outcomes; By 2007, there were 9 state P4P programs covering 20% of NHs and 16.7% of residents; Little is known about the use of P4P to promote quality and efficiency in the NH sector.

Increasing Consumer Involvement In Medicaid Nursing Facility Reimbursement: Lessons From New York And Minnesota, Edward M. Miller, Cynthia Rudder

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This project identified the facts about Nursing Facility Reimbursement by Medicaid in the states of New York and Minnesota. The results of this project are as follows: Medicaid is the main purchaser of nursing home (NH) care in the United States; States design their methods of reimbursing NHs to achieve desired policy objectives; Few consumers or resident advocates have been involved in the development or modification of state methods for reimbursing NHs; Lack of consumer involvement has resulted in payment systems that favor industry and government interests at the expense of issues important to residents and families.

Health Careers Opportunity Program, Kunthary Thai-Johnson

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Located on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus, the Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP) is an educational program funded through the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The mission of the program is to create a “pipeline” that starts at the middle and high schools in Boston, continues through the undergraduate programs at Tufts University and UMass Boston, and culminates in the graduate-level public health and/or medical programs at Tufts University School of Medicine or other medical schools.

Compliance: E-Science Mandates And Policies, Sarah White

Lecture Series on E-Science

Data collected under federally funded research is subject to compliance rules and regulations. Policies affecting what you can and cannot do with your data, who is responsible, and what role your institution plays can vary with funding agencies and the type of data collected. This talk will address many of the compliance issues associated with research data, as well as funder mandates that you need to be aware of to ensure compliance.

Modulation Of Gsk-3Β Activity In Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus Infection, Kylene Kehn-Hall, Aarthi Narayanan, Lindsay Lundberg, Gavin Sampey, Chelsea Pinkham, Irene Guendel, Rachel Van Duyne, Svetlana Senina, Kimberly L. Schultz, Eric Stavale, M. Javad Aman, Charles Bailey, Fatah Kashanchi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine Faculty Publications

Alphaviruses, including Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEEV), cause disease in both equine and humans that exhibit overt encephalitis in a significant percentage of cases. Features of the host immune response and tissue-specific responses may contribute to fatal outcomes as well as the development of encephalitis. It has previously been shown that VEEV infection of mice induces transcription of pro-inflammatory cytokines genes (e.g., IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-12, iNOS and TNF-α) within 6 h. GSK-3β is a host protein that is known to modulate pro-inflammatory gene expression and has been a therapeutic target in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's. Hence inhibition of GSK-3β …

Encoding Of Sensory Prediction Errors In The Human Cerebellum., John Schlerf, Richard B Ivry, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

A central tenet of motor neuroscience is that the cerebellum learns from sensory prediction errors. Surprisingly, neuroimaging studies have not revealed definitive signatures of error processing in the cerebellum. Furthermore, neurophysiologic studies suggest an asymmetry, such that the cerebellum may encode errors arising from unexpected sensory events, but not errors reflecting the omission of expected stimuli. We conducted an imaging study to compare the cerebellar response to these two types of errors. Participants made fast out-and-back reaching movements, aiming either for an object that delivered a force pulse if intersected or for a gap between two objects, either of which …

A Heuristic Solution Of The Identifiability Problem Of The Age-Period-Cohort Analysis Of Cancer Occurrence: Lung Cancer Example., Tengiz Mdzinarishvili, Simon Sherman

Journal Articles: Eppley Institute

BACKGROUND: The Age-Period-Cohort (APC) analysis is aimed at estimating the following effects on disease incidence: (i) the age of the subject at the time of disease diagnosis; (ii) the time period, when the disease occurred; and (iii) the date of birth of the subject. These effects can help in evaluating the biological events leading to the disease, in estimating the influence of distinct risk factors on disease occurrence, and in the development of new strategies for disease prevention and treatment.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We developed a novel approach for estimating the APC effects on disease incidence rates in the frame of …

Eti‐385 As A Novel Anti‐Emetic Against Drug Induced Emesis, Theresa Fennell, James Lucot, Samantha Spitak, Emily Smith, Teresa Garret

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

Drugs currently used to prevent emesis (nausea and vomiting) target only one or a few of the pathways used by emetic stimuli to trigger the reflex. Thus, an anti-emetic drug will only be effective against some stimuli. Prior work determined that 8-OH-DPAT (DPAT, a 5-HT1A agonist) was a universally effective anti-emetic. Although DPAT prevented emesis, it also elicited an extreme anxiety response making it unsuitable for therapeutic use. Presently, there exists no universal anti-emetic drug. We tested a proprietary drug developed from DPAT, ETI-385, which successfully prevented emesis in musk shrews against chemotherapy, drug and motion stimuli. For FDA purposes, …

Overexpression Of Serum Response Factor In Astrocytes Improves Neuronal Plasticity In A Model Of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, Arco P. Paul

Theses and Dissertations

Neuronal plasticity deficits underlie many of the neurobehavioral problems seen in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Recently, we showed that third trimester alcohol exposure lead to a persistent disruption in ocular dominance (OD) plasticity. For instance, few days of monocular deprivation results in a robust reduction of cortical regions responsive to the deprived eye in normal animals, but not in ferrets exposed early to alcohol. This plasticity deficit can be reversed if alcohol-exposed animals are treated with a phosphodiesterase type 1 (PDE1) inhibitor during the period of monocular deprivation. PDE1 inhibition can increase cAMP and cGMP levels, activating transcription factors …

Nonword Repetition And Interactions Among Vocabulary, Phonotactic Probability, And Phonological Awareness In Four Linguistic Groups, Sue Ann S. Lee, Brenda K. Gorman

Speech Pathology and Audiology Faculty Research and Publications

The current study was designed to compare the English nonword repetition accuracy in 7-year-old monolingual English, Korean–English bilingual, Chinese–English bilingual, and Spanish–English bilingual children. The relationships among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and phonotactic probability in each group of children were also examined. The results indicated significant differences among the groups’ accuracy of consonants and vowels by syllable length. Different correlational patterns emerged among nonword repetition accuracy, vocabulary, and phonological awareness. Theoretical and clinical implications for the use of nonword repetition tasks for children from various linguistic backgrounds are discussed.

Genetic Polymorphism In A Vegf-Independent Angiogenesis Gene Angpt1 And Overall Survival Of Colorectal Cancer Patients After Surgical Resection, Jingyao Dai, Shaogui Wan, Feng Zhou, Ronald E. Myers, Xu Guo, Bingshan Li, Xiaoying Fu, Juan P. Palazzo, Kefeng Dou, Hushan Yang, Jinliang Xing

Kimmel Cancer Center Faculty Papers

Background

The VEGF-independent angiogenic signaling plays an important role in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, its implication in the clinical outcome of CRC has not been reported. This study aimed to investigate the association between genetic variations in several major VEGF-independent signaling pathway genes and the overall survival of CRC patients.

Methods

Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in four important VEGF-independent angiogenic genes (ANGPT1, AMOT, DLL4 and ENG) were genotyped in a Chinese population with 408 CRC patients.

Results

One SNP, rs1954727 in ANGPT1, was significantly associated with CRC overall survival. Compared to …

Flowcell Systems For Single Molecule Detection, John G. K. Williams, Gregory R. Bashford, Jiyan Chen, Dan Draney, Nara Narayanan, Bambi L. Reynolds, Pamela Sheaff

Biomedical Imaging and Biosignal Analysis Laboratory

The present invention provides compounds, methods and systems for sequencing nucleic acid using single molecule detection. Using labeled NPs that exhibit charge-switching behavior, single-molecule DNA sequencing in a microchannel sorting system is realized. In operation, sequencing products are detected enabling real-time sequencing as successive detectable moieties flow through a detection channel. By electrically sorting charged molecules, the cleaved product molecules are detected in isolation without interference from unincorporated NPs and without illuminating the polymerase-DNA complex.

2012 April 3 - Medical Student Education Committee Minutes, Medical Student Education Committee, East Tennessee State University

Medical Student Education Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Positive Youth Development Constructs: Conceptual Review And Application, Daniel T. L. Shek, Rachel C. F. Sun, Joav Merrick

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Life-Course Origins Of Social Inequalities In Adult Immune Cell Markers Of Inflammation In Developing Southern Chinese Population: The Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study, Douglas A. West, Gabriel M. Leung, Chao Q. Jiang, Timothy M. Elwell-Sutton, Wei S. Zhang, Tai H. Lam, Kar K. Cheng, Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Background
Socioeconomic position (SEP) throughout life is associated with cardiovascular disease, though the mechanisms linking these two are unclear. It is also unclear whether there are critical periods in the life course when exposure to better socioeconomic conditions confers advantages or whether SEP exposures accumulate across the whole life course. Inflammation may be a mechanism linking socioeconomic position (SEP) with cardiovascular disease. In a large sample of older residents of Guangzhou, in southern China, we examined the association of life course SEP with inflammation.

Methods
In baseline data on 9,981 adults (≥ 50 years old) from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort …

Interrogating Grenadian Masculinities And Violence Against Women: An Evaluation Of The United Nations Partnership For Peace Program, Rohan Dexter Jeremiah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This applied anthropology study, guided by a feminist perspective and in particular, Black Feminist Thought is an outgrowth of an evaluation study of the Partnership for Peace Program (PFP) in Grenada, West Indies. The PFP is a Caribbean-specific model that was built into a sixteen-week cycle program by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UNWomen). Since 2005, the PFP has been geared towards Grenadian men, who have used violence against women to express their masculine identities. PFP focuses exclusively on rehabilitating male perpetrators with a goal to protect the human rights of women. This research …

Chromosomal Instability And Cancer: A Complex Relationship With Therapeutic Potential, Samuel F. Bakhoum, Duane A. Compton

Dartmouth Scholarship

Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a hallmark of human neoplasms. Despite its widespread prevalence, knowledge of the mechanisms and contributions of CIN in cancer has been elusive. It is now evident that the role of CIN in tumor initiation and growth is more complex than previously thought. Furthermore, distinguishing CIN, which consists of elevated rates of chromosome missegregation, from aneuploidy, which is a state of abnormal chromosome number, is crucial to understanding their respective contributions in cancer. Collectively, experimental evidence suggests that CIN enables tumor adaptation by allowing tumors to constantly sample the aneuploid fitness landscape. This complex relationship, together with …

Rituximab Induces Sustained Reduction Of Pathogenic B Cells In Patients With Peripheral Nervous System Autoimmunity., Michael A Maurer, Goran Rakocevic, Carol S Leung, Isaak Quast, Martin Lukačišin, Norbert Goebels, Christian Münz, Hedda Wardemann, Marinos Dalakas, Jan D Lünemann

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

The B cell-depleting IgG1 monoclonal antibody rituximab can persistently suppress disease progression in some patients with autoimmune diseases. However, the mechanism underlying these long-term beneficial effects has remained unclear. Here, we evaluated Ig gene usage in patients with anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein (anti-MAG) neuropathy, an autoimmune disease of the peripheral nervous system that is mediated by IgM autoantibodies binding to MAG antigen. Patients with anti-MAG neuropathy showed substantial clonal expansions of blood IgM memory B cells that recognized MAG antigen. The group of patients showing no clinical improvement after rituximab therapy were distinguished from clinical responders by a higher load of clonal …

The Team Hope Walk: Reinforcing The First Line Of Defense Against Huntington's Disease, Kenneth P. Serbin

At Risk for Huntington's Disease

No abstract provided.

Interaction Entre La Gestion Des Ressources Humaines Et La Sst : L’Enseignement Aux Futurs Gestionnaires, Sylvie Gravel, Monique Lortie, Henriette Bilodeau, Jessica Dubé

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Plusieurs disciplines, dont l’ergonomie, la médecine, la toxicologie, l’andragogie et bien d’autres, ont contribué à l’avancement des connaissances en santé et sécurité au travail (SST). Malgré les avancées scientifiques, un défi demeure, celui de développer les habiletés des gestionnaires et de sensibiliser ces derniers à leur rôle dans la prise en charge des mesures correctrices et préventives en matière de santé et de sécurité. Une équipe de professeurs de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) a proposé de relever ce défi en constituant une banque d’études de cas destinée à l’enseignement aux futurs gestionnaires. Les cas ont été élaborés à …

Mesures Par Ultrasons Des Muscles Profonds Du Tronc : Évaluation De La Fidélité Intra Et Interévaluateurs : Programme Repar - Irsst, Christian Larivière, Dany Gagnon, Eros De Oliveira, Sharon Henry, Hakim Mecheri, Jean-Pierre Dumas, Roger Vadeboncoeur

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Introduction

Afin de compléter les outils nécessaires pour évaluer et valider différents programmes d'exercices visant à favoriser le retour au travail chez des travailleurs ayant une lombalgie chronique, des outils d'évaluation de certaines déficiences lombaires doivent être implantés et évalués. Afin d'évaluer les fonctions jouées par les muscles profonds du tronc, des mesures par ultrasons ont été développées. Les objectifs de la présente recherche sont (1) d'importer cette expertise dans notre groupe de recherche (2) de développer les outils d'analyse nécessaires pour extraire les mesures requises des images produites et (3) d'évaluer la fidélité INTRA- et INTER-évaluateurs de ces mesures. …

A Standardized Evidence-Based Model Of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Practice: A Quest For The Holy Grail?, Guy G. Simoneau

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

The growth of knowledge in orthopaedic physical therapy practice is on an exponential trajectory. This growth is occurring simultaneously for many aspects of evidence-based practice: diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and harm – with increasingly more sophisticated basic science and mechanistic studies guiding and supporting the clinical research endeavors. Just how close are we to the day when we can clearly establish the accuracy of our diagnoses, regardless of the model used, and then can confidently inform our patients of the most effective treatment approach and the expected outcomes, as well as any potential harm? This knowledge is being created now, and …

Capturing Every Patron Interaction: The Move From Paper Statistics To An Electronic System To Track The Whole Library., Emily Vardell, Kimberly A. Loper, Vedana Vaidhyanathan

Faculty Research, Publications, and Presentations

Reference departments track patron interactions to illustrate the type and number of services provided as well as to tailor librarians’ time and expertise to the interest and needs of their patrons. Until 2010, the Reference, Education, and Community Engagement Department at the Calder Memorial Library tracked statistics using a complicated system of paper tic sheets and two Excel™ spreadsheets. After considering different electronic systems, the department decided to employ an electronic form created with SurveyMonkey™ to track patron interactions. After the system had been in place for three months, the authors administered a Satisfaction and Use survey to collect faculty …

Nursing Reference Center: A Point-Of-Care Resource, Emily Vardell, Gediminas Paulaitis

Faculty Research, Publications, and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Sex And Gender In Tobacco Reduction - The State Of The Evidence, Iris Torchalla, Chizimuzo T.C. Okoli

Nursing Presentations

• Global prevalence, risk, and mortality from smoking

• Gender/Sex specific diseases associated with tobacco use

• Gender/Sex specific reasons for smoking

• Gender/Sex specific factors in treating tobacco use

The Tobacco Dependence Clinic: Gender Issues And Possibilities In Cessation Treatment, Chizimuzo T.C. Okoli, Milan Khara

Nursing Presentations

• The Tobacco Dependence Clinic (TDC) is a program that provides behavioural counselling and up to 6-7months of no-cost pharmacotherapy for clients through VCH Mental Health and Addiction Services

• Program is run with a team of nurses, counsellors, respiratory therapists, and a physician.

• Currently in 7 Addictions services located in community health centres in Vancouver.

Integrative Health Studies Newsletter, Ciis

Integrative Health Studies Newsletter

This is the Spring 2012 issue of the Integrative Health Studies Newsletter at CIIS.

Healthnet News V.27:No.1 Spring 2012, Judith S. Kronick, Alberta Richetelle

Articles - Patient Care

A newsletter for public librarians and others interested in consumer health information services.

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Strain-Specific And Conserved Stemness Genes In Schmidtea Mediterranea, Alissa M. Resch, Michael Horowitz, Brenton R. Graveley

UCHC Articles - Research

The planarian Schmidtea mediterranea is a powerful model organism for studying stem cell biology due to its extraordinary regenerative ability mediated by neoblasts, a population of adult somatic stem cells. Elucidation of the S. mediterranea transcriptome and the dynamics of transcript expression will increase our understanding of the gene regulatory programs that regulate stem cell function and differentiation. Here, we have used RNA-Seq to characterize the S. mediterranea transcriptome in sexual and asexual animals and in purified neoblast and differentiated cell populations. Our analysis identified many uncharacterized genes, transcripts, and alternatively spliced isoforms that are differentially expressed in a strain …

Kalirin, A Key Player In Synapse Formation, Is Implicated In Human Diseases, Prashant Mandela, Xin-Ming Ma

UCHC Articles - Research

Synapse formation is considered to be crucial for learning and memory. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms of synapse formation is a key to understanding learning and memory. Kalirin-7, a major isoform of Kalirin in adult rodent brain, is an essential component of mature excitatory synapses. Kalirin-7 interacts with multiple PDZ-domain-containing proteins including PSD95, spinophilin, and GluR1 through its PDZ-binding motif. In cultured hippocampal/cortical neurons, overexpression of Kalirin-7 increases spine density and spine size whereas reduction of endogenous Kalirin-7 expression decreases synapse number, and spine density. In Kalirin-7 knockout mice, spine length, synapse number, and postsynaptic density (PSD) size are decreased …