2021 News and Events

12/21/21

Dr. Thomas Love Co-authors a Publication on an Epilepsy Study

Dr. Thomas Love has an important paper just published that he collaborated on with others at the Cleveland Clinic and the International League Against Epilepsy.

The aim was to compare the outcomes of subdural electrode (SDE) implantations versus stereotactic electroencephalography (SEEG), the 2 predominant methods of intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) performed in difficult-to-localize drug-resistant focal epilepsy.

In comparison to SEEG, SDE evaluations are more likely to lead to brain surgery in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy but have more surgical complications and lower probability of seizure freedom. This comparative-effectiveness study provides the highest feasible evidence level to guide decisions on iEEG.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ana.26238

12/3/2021

AHA Plenary Talk Given by Dr. Jarrod Dalton

Dr. Jarrod Dalton, collaborating faculty at the Cleveland Clinic, gave an invited plenary talk, titled "Digital Disparities: Disproportionate Tech Savviness and Impact on Health Equity and Health Literacy", at the 2021 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in November.

12/2/2021

MHS and OHSU Collaborate on Maternal Safety Tool for Postpartum RHIG Administration

Dr. Gabriel Labbad and Dr. David Bar-Shain have co-authored a report in collaboration with others from Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU). "Missed RHIG administration to postpartum patients in two health systems: an unrecognized patient safety risk" is the first report in the literature of the postpartum Rh Immune Globulin (RHIG) administration rate.

In addition, it describes electronic health record (EHR) tools built at MetroHealth (MHS) which help improve upon the baseline excellent performance on this metric. The EHR tools improved performance to zero missed administrations at MHS.

This project showcases judicious use of Clinical Decision Support (CDS) hard-stops, tools to decrease documentation burden, and collaboration between the Clinical Informatics and Obstetrics departments at two institutions using the Epic EHR (Epic Systems Corp., Verona, WI).

12/2/2021

Newly funded CDC grant for Drs. David Kaelber and David Bar-Shain

CCIRE faculty Drs. Kaelber and Bar-Shain are participating in a newly funded CDC grant entitled, “Safety and Healthcare Epidemiology Prevention Research Development (SHEPheRD), Program2021 Domain 1-A012, Electronic Support for Public Health-VAERS (ESPVAERS) for COVID-19” (PI Klompas).

CCIRE faculty will be updating and revising a computer algorithm to assist in better detecting vaccine adverse events, including COVID-19, and reporting them to the CDC.

11/22/2021

Translating Clinical Narrative in Obstetrics to Computerized Decision Support

Dr. Brittany Sanford and Dr. Gabriel Labbad and collaborators have a research article just published on a methodology for translating American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) clinical narrative into a semi-structured format that can be more easily applied as computerized decision support (CDS) within the electronic health record (EHR) systems at point-of-care (POC). They believe this work can contribute to developing a library of information within ACOG that can be continually updated and disseminated to EHR systems for optimal decision support. View article.

11/19/2021

Dr. Jill Miracle Co-Authors Paper on COVID-19 Disease in Pregnancy

Population Health Research Institute Fellow Dr. Jill Miracle co-authored a paper “COVID-19 in Pregnancy: Occupations with Higher Density Population Exposure Associated with More Severe Disease” published in a recent issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. This retrospective cohort study, which was conducted in collaboration with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health using public surveillance data, described the symptomatology and sociodemographic characteristics of pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19 disease. 163 women were included, most of which were Cuyahoga County residents. The major finding of the study was an association between occupations with higher density of exposure to the public and more severe COVID-19 disease in pregnancy. These high population density occupations included positions in the food service and healthcare sectors. The study highlights the need for protective workplace measures and policies for this vulnerable population.

11/18/2021

Dr. Perzynski's Patient Centered Media Lab receives a Northeast Ohio Renal Research Innovation Award

A team in Dr. Perzynski's Patient Centered Media Lab here at MetroHealth has received a Northeast Ohio Renal Research Innovation Award in the amount of $62,500 to conduct a feasibility study of a new wearable device designed to help patients on home kidney dialysis by monitoring their fluid levels in real time. The wrist worn band is currently being tested in a validation trial among healthy adults, and the newly funded study will be the first of its kind to measure body fluid levels at home continuously in dialysis patients. Collaborating investigators on the study include Dr. Nathan Makowski (MetroHealth, PM&R) and Dr. Anne Huml (Cleveland Clinic Nephrology).

11/5/2021

Drs. Douglas Gunzler and Adam Perzynski Teaching Series of Short Courses on SEM for the ASA.

Population Health Research Institute and Center for Health Care Research and Policy Drs. Douglas D. Gunzler and Adam T. Perzynski along with their colleague Dr. Adam C. Carle (Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center) are virtually teaching a series of seven half-day courses (May-November 2021) on structural equation modeling (SEM) across the nation to local chapters of the American Statistical Association (ASA) as part of an ASA Council of Chapters Traveling Course. The course titled “Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling with Health-related Outcome Measures” includes topics and material from the first ever textbook on SEM for scientists in health and medicine written by Drs. Gunzler, Perzynski and Carle and published as part of the Chapman & Hall/CRC Biostatistics Series (publication date: March 30, 2021).

SEM is a very general and flexible multivariate technique that allows relationships among variables to be examined. SEM is often used in practice to model and test hypothesized causal relationships among observed and latent (unobserved) variables, including in analysis across time and groups.

The roots of SEM are in the social sciences. In writing the textbook and presenting the short course, Drs. Gunzler, Perzynski and Carle look to make SEM accessible to a wider audience of researchers across many disciplines, addressing issues unique to health and medicine.

Traveling course link

Find more information about the book

10/11/2021

Dr. David Bar-Shain is Recipient of American Association of Pediatrics Award

Dr. Bar-Shain is a primary care pediatrician, Director of Informatics for Clinical Decision Support for The MetroHealth System, and an Assistant Program Director of the Case Western Reserve University/MetroHealth Clinical Informatics Fellowship. "These three roles allow me to pursue my combined passions of clinical pediatrics, technical innovation and mentoring the next generation," Dr. Bar-Shain says.

Dr. Bar-Shain has focused a major portion of his informatics career on increasing immunization rates among children and adults. Among his accomplishments, he's developed and continuously works to improve the decision support which helps MetroHealth clinicians recognize immunization care gaps. Dr. Bar-Shain has also worked to improve the integrity of patients' immunization data by configuring our records to promote compatibility with our state immunization registry, and by advocating for changes in the ways that we exchange the data. He's also worked to empower patients by configuring a system that allows them to recognize their own immunization care gaps and enter their own adult immunization data directly into their electronic health records.

The AAP is an organization of 67,000 pediatricians committed to the physical, mental, and social health and well-being of all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. Dr. Bar-Shain was honored with the Byron Oberst Award on October 10 during the AAP's 2021 Virtual National Conference and Exhibition. His acceptance speech entitled, "Curating, Celebrating and Championing Your Failures," is available here.

9/23/2021

Dr. Richard McCormick Co-authors paper on Alcohol Misuse Among National Guard Members

Dr. Richard McCormick co-authored an article recently published in JMIR Mental Health. A supplementary analysis of a successful large randomized controlled trial of a web based intervention for hazardous drinking among National Guard members, which included three boosters sessions following a brief intervention four that delivering the boosters by a veteran peer led to higher engagement than a web-based delivery system. Demographic and psychological variables were also identified that were predictive of booster engagement for both of the booster delivery formats. The findings have implications for the successful engagement of subjects in an inexpensive intervention for alcohol misuse which was found to be a problem for the 30.7% of subjects screened who met criteria for hazardous alcohol use.

A link to the article can be found at https://mental.jmir.org/2021/10/e29397/PDF

9/19/2021

The Population Health Research Institute would like to congratulate Drs. Kristen Berg and Agnieszka Ardelt for being the Institute’s first Pilot Grant Awardees. This program provides one year of seed monies for MetroHealth investigators to fund research projects in population health.

Teaching Students to Teach About Stroke - PI: Dr. Agnieszka Ardelt, MD

The MetroHealth Stroke Research Team is embarking on a new partnership with area high schools to “Teach Students to Teach About Stroke”, funded by a pilot grant from Population Health Research Institute at MetroHealth. Together with the students, we will develop, deploy, and compare two different teaching methods; one a standard teaching method, and one a student-created method, to teach stroke signs and symptoms and the need to call 911. The results from this pilot grant will inform future strategies for students teaching other students in high schools and in their communities.

Investigating socioeconomic disparities in slow and fast aging: Exploiting residual blood samples to examine sociomedical risk and resilience in a pediatric analytic cohort - PI: Kristen Berg, PhD

This pilot project investigates how young people’s biological aging may unfold at different rates across different neighborhood socioeconomic environments. Research suggests that individuals who live in more socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to show worse health and faster biological aging over time when compared to individuals of the same chronological age who live in neighborhoods that are more socioeconomically advantaged. Findings will aid in developing longer-term intervention that focus on engaging youth in thinking critically about the significance of their environmental and social conditions.

8/25/2021

Dr. Douglas Gunzler receives $297.3 thousand grant to study symptom patterns and phenotypic clusters in persons with multiple sclerosis

Douglas Gunzler, PhD, along with Drs. Farren Briggs (Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, Case Western Reserve University) and Alessandro De Nadai (Department of Psychology, Texas State University), were awarded a $297.3 thousand NIH R56 grant to study symptom patterns and phenotypic clusters in persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Some of these symptoms, with varied severity in PwMS, include optic nerve dysfunction and vision problems, bladder/bowel dysfunction, cognitive and emotional problems, tremors, muscle weakness and incoordination. The long-term goal of the research is to facilitate decision making for clinicians and patients. Innovative features of the proposed project include the use of advanced statistical techniques to identify clinically meaningful phenotypic clusters of PwMS and generate new knowledge of mobility impairment in MS based on the patient’s perspective. Dr. Gunzler is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Population and Quantitative Health Sciences.

8/31/2021

Population Health Research Institute Welcomes New Faculty, Researchers and Fellows into PHRI this Summer

Anne Gaglioti, MD, MS, is a family medicine physician researcher and joint faculty hire within the MetroHealth and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) Center for Health Care Research and Policy within PHRI and the CWRU Center for Community Health Integration (CHI).She applies diverse methods including patient and community engagement, practice based research, qualitative methods, geo-spatial methods, big data, and advanced modeling techniques to study the intersection of primary care, population health, and health equity. Here’s a link to her publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1zec-ffPh2HQp/bibliography/public/.
Kristen Berg, PhD, has joined the Center for Health Care Research and Policy within PHRI transitioning from a post-doc fellow to a Population Health Researcher position.She employs a variety of qualitative methods and advanced quantitative modeling approaches to studying neighborhood social determinants of individual and family health across the life course. Here’s a link to her publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/kristen.berg.1/bibliography/public/
Kirsten Eom, PhD, begins a 3-year post-doc fellowship with The Center for Health Care Research and Policy within PHRI this summer to catalyze population health focused cancer research at The MetroHealth System.
Jill Miracle, MD, MPH, an infectious disease physician, begins a 2-year population health research fellowship this summer led by Drs. Caron and Thornton. Her research seeks to address upstream factors associated with prevention of infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C.
Eric Kim, MD, PhD, a family medicine physician who recently graduated from the University of Colorado family medicine residency program, is beginning a 2-year ACGME accredited clinical informatics fellowship within the Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education.
Devereaux Sellers, MD, MBA, a pathologist who recently completed his pathology residency at MetroHealth, is beginning a 2-year ACGME accredited clinical informatics fellowship within the Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education.

8/25/2021

Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education Becomes A Primary Implementation Site for NIH Grant

The Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education (CCIRE) recently became a primary implementation site for a 5-year NIH R01 grant to reduce second-hand smoke exposure in children by focusing on adult smoker interventions at pediatric visits (site PI Kaelber and other CCIRE collaborators include Nicholas Riley and Janeen Leon). The lead investigators for this study are from Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Participating in this grant will results in more than $1 million in research funding to MetroHealth.

7/18/2021

Dr. Douglas Gunzler Collaborates on Parkinson’s Disease Study Funded by Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

MetroHealth faculty Dr. Gunzler in collaboration with CWRU Population and Quantitative Health Sciences faculty Dr. Briggs received a 1-year $100,000 grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. The project aims to advance our understanding of the pathological mechanisms underlying disability in Parkinson’s disease, with a focus on important patient quality of life outcomes of pain and mobility.

7/16/2021

Article Published on How Racialized Experiences Differentiate Food Security Among African American Adults

CWRU faculty Dr. Chisolm in conjunction with PHRI collaborating CWRU faculty Dr. Freedman (and other collaborators) recently published an article which describes how racialized experiences differentiate food security among African American adults. Findings highlight potential root cause targets such as wages, education, home ownership, and employment that may be modulated to mitigate the effects of racism on food insecurity.

View Publication

7/15/2021

Center for Reducing Health Disparities Announces Pilot Grant Awardees for 2021

Congratulations to The Center for Reducing Health Disparities (CRHD) pilot grant awardees for 2021. Dr. Mintz, one of the awardees is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at CWRU and an Internal Medicine-Pediatrics physician at MetroHealth. Her project aims to understand the effects of stigma on the experiences of LGBTQ+ persons that have chronic pain conditions. Dr. Pope, another pilot grant awardee, is a gynecologist at University Hospitals. She aims to work with the community to identify barriers to gender affirming medical and surgical care. The third awardee, Dr. Owusua Yamoah, is a post-doctoral scholar at the CWRU Mary Ann Swetland Center for Environmental Health. Her project explores spatial and temporal patterns in the use of food pantries in selected neighborhoods in Cleveland, and explores food needs and the value of food pantries to clients as well as barriers that affect the utilization and efficiency of food pantries.

7/15/2021

Vanessa Maier, MD, MPH has been chosen as the Regional Leader for the ABC Science Collaborative

Vanessa Maier, MD, MPH has been chosen as the Regional Leader for the ABC Science Collaborative, a National Institutes of Health funded initiative coordinated through Duke School of Medicine to assist school and community leaders in understanding the most current and relevant data regarding COVID-19 transmission in schools. The MetroHealth School Health Program is a Regional Leader for this initiative through Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in collaboration with our school partners: Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, The Intergenerational Schools and Breakthrough Schools. These schools will have access to the ABC Science Collaborative’s evidence-based resources, including the app-based pandemic management tool, to assist them in providing safe in-school instruction. Dr. Maier will work with national partners on a variety of research initiatives, contributing data and supporting efforts to improve the quality of data available to guide mitigation strategies in schools. The latest ABC Science Collaborative report COVID-19 and Schools: The Year in Review and a Path Forward provides guidance for schools and policymakers to support safe in-person learning and limit the transmission of COVID-19 in K-12 schools.

7/14/2021

Dr. Brook Watts Receives $1M HRSA Grant for MetroHealth Mobile Health Outreach Program

Dr. Brook Watts, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Community and Public Health at The MetroHealth System with Dr. Nagel CEO of MetroHealth Community Health Centers received a HRSA grant for $500,000 per year for 2 years for implementation and expansion of the MetroHealth mobile health outreach program.

7/14/2021

PHRI Researchers Publish Study on COVID Vaccination Rates Among Health Care Professionals

Dr. J. Daryl Thornton along with other PHRI and MetroHealth faculty including Drs. Dixon-Williams, Huml, Gunzler, Perzynski, and Einstadter recently published a recent Annals of Internal Medicine paper investigating the differences in COVID vaccination rates among health care professionals. They identified disparities in vaccination rates by race/ethnicity and occupational category highlighting the need for future research on effective interventions to reduce disparities in vaccine uptake among this high risk group.

View Publication

7/2/2021

Congratulations on Recent Promotions and New Titles!

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Greco on his recent promotion to Professor and Dr. Glen Taksler on his promotion to Associate Professor of Medicine!

3/22/21

Linking Individual Data From the Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems Center and Local Trauma Registry: Development and Validation of Probabilistic Matching Algorithm

YuYing Chen, MD, MPH, Huacong Wen, Russel Griffin, Mary Joan Roach, Michael Kelly.

A recently published article by Population Health Research Institute and other MetroHealth investigators used trauma registry data from 5 SCI Model Systems and the corresponding SCI National Database to develop a probabilistic matching algorithm. The value in matching patient data from different data sources is that these datasets provide population health researchers the ability to better understand the determinants of health outcomes.

Insights gained from these datasets can drive interventions to reduce health disparities. We identified a probabilistic algorithm that identified 65 of the 91 true-match records (sensitivity, 71.4%) with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 80.2%. The algorithm was validated with over 282 SCIMS-trauma pairs across 127 clusters and had a sensitivity of 73.7% and PPV of 81.1%.

Post hoc analysis shows the addition of injury date and zip code improved the specificity from 57.9% to 94.7%. 746 facilities with valid trauma diagnosis with an overall mortality rate of 4.31.123

View Publication

03/21/21

Ethanol Level and Neurologic Outcomes in Persons with Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury

Josephine Volovetz, Michael Kelly, Greg Nemunaitis, Argyrios Stampas and Mary Joan Roach.

Dr. Roach and other Population Health Research Institute and MetroHealth investigators recently published an article describing the characteristics of the traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) population who received their injury due to falls, and the re-occurrence of falls over time after the initial SCI.

Our key findings were that Blood Alcohol Level had a positive association with neurologic recovery in patients with spinal cord injury as measured by the International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury exam’s Motor Score Gain during acute rehabilitation.

View Publication

03/17/21

Drs. Gunzler, Perzynski and Carle Author Textbook on SEM for Scientists in Health and Medicine

Doug Gunzler Adam Perzynski, PhD

The roots of SEM are in the social sciences. In writing this textbook, the authors look to make SEM accessible to a wider audience of researchers across many disciplines, addressing issues unique to health and medicine.

Find more information about the book

03/15/21

CHRP Collaboration with Better Health Partnership

Center for Health Care Research and Policy investigators (Bolen, Love, Einstadter, Caron, Fiegl, Lewis, and Cebul) collaborated on a project with Better Health Partnership and their member clinics demonstrating substantial improvement in blood pressure control and reductions in disparities in blood pressure control across the Northeast Ohio region in over 20 primary care practices from over 5 health systems.

Practice coaching or expert consultation in the setting of a regional health improvement collaborative both were effective in improving outcomes and reducing disparities. Find out more in the Journal of General Internal Medicine which recently published this success in January 2021 (Improving Regional Blood Pressure Control: a Positive Deviance Tiered Intensity Approach)

03/03/21

Telehealth Care of COVID-19

Dr. Dave Margolius and colleagues at MetroHealth published a paper on telehealth care of COVID-19. The article is featured in a Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine special issue on Primary Care and COVID-19. The paper describes symptoms, visit disposition and the novel care process approaches utilized in the hotline.

The study concluded that, "Robust, physician-directed telehealth services can meet a wide range of clinical and social needs during the acute phase of a pandemic, conserving scarce resources such as personal protective equipment and testing supplies and preventing the spread of infections to patients and health care workers."

The collaborative work included two CWRU medical students (Mary Hennekes and Jimmy Yao) as well as Drs. Einstadter, Gunzler, Chehade, Sehgal, Tarabachi and Perzynski.

Margolius, D., Hennekes, M., Yao, J., Einstadter, D., Gunzler, D., Chehade, N., Sehgal, A.R., Tarabichi, Y. and Perzynski, A.T., 2021. On the front (phone) lines: results of a COVID-19 hotline. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 34(Supplement), pp.S95-S102.

View Publication

01/29/21

Drs. Bolen and Caron Receive $4.1 Million Award to Expand Ohio Cardiovascular Heart Collaborative

Shari Bolen Aleece Caron

Shari Bolen, MD, Director of the MetroHealth Population Health Research Institute (PHRI), and Aleece Caron, PhD, Co-Director of Education for the MetroHealth PHRI were awarded a 4-year, $4.1 million grant from The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) entitled "Achieving Outstanding Cardiovascular Health for All Ohioans: a Statewide Cardiovascular Health Collaborative (Cardio-OH).

The goal of the grant is to improve cardiovascular health and reduce cardiovascular health disparities for all Ohioans. They will work with primary care teams, patients and families, and statewide partners to develop a heart-healthy intervention program that primary care clinics in Ohio can use to improve care and reduce disparities for patients with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and who smoke.

Drs. Bolen and Caron are Associate Professors of Medicine at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

01/29/21

Adoption of Health System Innovations: Evidence of Urban-Rural Disparities from the Ohio Primary Care Marketplace

Three major developments in health care delivery and payment generated particular attention during the last decade: accountable care organizations (ACOs), patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), and the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs). Translating these reforms into meaningful increases in population health depends on improving the quality and clinical integration of primary care providers (PCPs).

However, if these innovations spread more quickly among PCPs in urban and wealthier areas, then they could potentially worsen existing geographic disparities in health outcomes. Population Health Research Institute investigators and collaborators Drs. Tanenbaum, Love, Einstadter, Cebul and Votruba published a study which assessed the primary care market penetration of Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs, PCMHs, and the meaningful use of EHRs among PCPs across urban and rural counties in Ohio.

We found that although the market penetration of PCMHs and ACOs increased faster in urban markets compared to rural markets, the adoption of EHRs increased faster in rural markets. The results are a cause for optimism as well as a call to action: although recent efforts to increase PCMH and ACO adoption were less effective among the rural population in Ohio, federal programs to accelerate adoption of EHRs were overwhelmingly successful in rural areas.

Future health care reform efforts should consider this successful model when designing implementation strategies for delivery and payment innovations in rural areas.

View Publication

1/26/21

Ash Sehgal inaugural Director of Research and Evaluation for I4HOPE

Ashwini Sehgal, MD

Dr. Ashwini (Ash) Sehgal will be the inaugural Director of Research and Evaluation for the Institute for H.O.P.E.™ in the Population Health Innovation Institute (PHII) at The MetroHealth System.

The mission of the Institute for H.O.P.E.™ is to identify and help eliminate barriers to optimal individual and community health and well-being through improving social influencers of health and addressing the root causes of health disparities in the Northeast Ohio region.

In this new role, Dr. Sehgal will foster the missions of the PHII and the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) to generate new knowledge, inform and target health and health care improvement initiatives, and conduct program evaluation to improve the health and health equity of the communities we serve.

He will continue to serve as co-director with Dr. Daryl Thornton for the Center for Reducing Health Disparities within PHRI while supporting enhanced collaboration between PHRI and PHII.

1/18/21

MetroHealth Part of One of Eight Multi-center Sites Funded by NIH to Uncover Risk Factors for COVID-19 Related Inflammatory Syndromes in Children

The MetroHealth System’s Population Health Research Institute’s Center for Clinical Informatics Research and Education is part of one of eight multi-center NIH R61 grants awarded to investigate COVID-19 in the pediatric population.

David Kaelber, MD, is site PI for MetroHealth on the grant entitled “COVID-19 Network of Networks Expanding Clinical and Translational approaches to Predict Severe Illness in Children (CONNECT to Predict Sick Children)”.

The primary goal of the grant is to develop robust predictive models in pediatric patients to predict who is likely and not likely to develop severe COVID-19 illness (short-term and long-term).

Because COVID-19 appears relatively rare in children and severe short-term and long-term COVID-19 related illnesses are even rarer in children, large databases will be needed to develop these robust predictive models.

MetroHealth’s primary role will be in providing access to and consultative expertise in using large electronic health record derived data sets including: Cosmos, IBM Watson Health Explorys, and TriNetX.

Each of these large data sets now contains data on over 70 million patients, of which 10-20 million are pediatric patients.

1/12/21

PHRI Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine faculty Awarded Three-Year $4.1 Million Grant

In January 2021, the PHRI Center for Health Care Research and Policy and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine faculty were awarded a three-year $4.1 million grant from The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality led by Drs. Shari Bolen and Aleece Caron to expand a statewide Ohio cardiovascular health collaborative (Cardi-OH).

This grant brings together leaders at The MetroHealth System, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and three regional health improvement collaboratives (The Health Collaborative, The Healthcare Collaborative of Greater Columbus, and Better Health Partnership) across the state along with many other state professional organizations, payers, community organizations, and other partners to improve cardiovascular health and reduce cardiovascular health disparities for all Ohioans.

To do this, they will work with primary care teams, patients and families to develop a heart healthy intervention that primary care clinics in Ohio can use to improve care and reduce disparities for patients with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and who smoke.

1/12/21

Dr. Aleece Caron Awarded $450,000 Grant

In November 2020, PHRI faculty member Dr. Aleece Caron was awarded a $450,000 grant from Project ECHO via the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network.

This grant will provide training to 118 congregant living facilities in Ohio on critical and timely topics to decrease the risk of nursing home prevalence and spread of COVID-19. To do this, we assembled a team of clinicians and local experts in nursing home administration, infectious disease, geriatrics, and quality improvement to provide a 16-week training program.

We are currently offering four 90-minute sessions each week led by MetroHealth faculty including Drs. James Campbell, Eileen Seeholzer, Ann Avery, Patricia Campbell, Lorella Luezas Shamakian, and Tiffany Leake, APRN. In addition, this grant creates a rapid response framework to provide urgent, immediate technical assistance, resources, and guidance to nursing homes that experience outbreaks and other emergencies.