Table of Contents

Upcoming Events

Focus of the Week - Research

Announcements

Presentations & Publications

Department Member Recognition

Frankly Speaking Podcast

Clinical Services Spotlight

Upcoming Events

FMCH Grand Rounds

Tuesday, January 24th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, "Navigating the Substance Use Disorder System in Massachusetts-Referrals, Consults, and More", presented by Hugh Silk, MD, MPH, James Ledwith, MD, Jay Broadhurst, MD, Heidi Ginter, MD, Kavita Babu, MD, Jillian Joseph, MPAS, PA-C and Justin LaPorte.

Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH

https://umassmed.zoom.us/j/91581334605?pwd=dndhY3paSmRRZ1RTQndtTEwxaWZOdz09

Psychiatry Grand Rounds

Thursday, January 26th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, "The Human Encounter with (the Denial of) Death", presented by Joshua Kriegel, MD.

Meeting ID: 818 349 233 Passcode: PsychGR1

https://umassmed.zoom.us/j/818349233?pwd=VVRDNUxZZmF4K3NqNXppTHJiVmNSUT09

FMCH Grand Rounds

Tuesday, January 31st, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, "Management of First Trimester Pregnancy Loss", presented by Kristina Gracey, MD, MPH.

Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH

https://umassmed.zoom.us/j/91581334605?pwd=dndhY3paSmRRZ1RTQndtTEwxaWZOdz09

New Funding Award and Publication

Ekaterina (Kate) Pivovarova, PhD was recently granted the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Pilot Project Program award to conduct research titled “Comparative Effectiveness of In-Jail Therapeutic Community Treatment to Extended-Release Naltrexone on Longitudinal Health and Legal Outcomes.” This is the first research program to establish a collaboration between UMass researchers and the Worcester Jail House of Corrections. The study will examine health-related and legal outcomes from addiction treatments provided during incarceration.

Patient and Provider Health Education Materials

As part of a month-long 4th year elective for medical students interested in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, a number of educational materials/infographics have been

developed by students that you might be interested in getting copies of. Please see the list below and contact Judy Savageau (judith.savageau@umassmed.edu) if you would like copies sent to you. These materials have all been developed working closely with one of our FMCH faculty or a content expert in another department. This is a great way to partner with a student in an area of great interest to you both!

Infographics include:

• Education needs for children in foster care
• Lipids and statins / Lipid management
• Circumcision guide for patients and providers
• Tips to help people living with mental health conditions to stop using tobacco products
• Information for family members and care givers of persons living with Alzheimer’s or dementia
• Information about facilities for caregivers of persons living with Alzheimer’s or dementia
• Worcester County resources for food insecurity
• Mindfulness: Evidence-based tools for coping with everyday stress

Request for Publications and Presentations for our FMCH Research Web Pages

Several times a year, but especially as the new academic year begins, we update our department’s research web pages (www.umassmed.edu/fmch/research) with new grants, publications, presentations, student/faculty projects, and many other research-related activities. If you have published something in the past year that hasn’t gotten to the Tuesday Talk, or you’ve given a research presentation, please send those updates to Judy Savageau (judith.savageau@umassmed.edu) and we’ll include them in the next set of updates. We would love to highlight all of your great work!

Monthly Departmental Research Forums

On the third Friday of each month (from September through June; noon – 1pm), we offer a research forum where you may want to present some work in progress or be a ‘member of the audience’ offering one of our colleagues some feedback on their work to get it to the next level. These are still via Zoom which has definitely increased the number of persons able to attend. Both works in progress as well as presentations on methodologies are offered. If you have an idea for an informal presentation or you’d like to learn more about a particular method, just let us know!

Resources for Healthcare Information: Newsletters, Blogs, Funding Opportunities, Data and more….

The listing below was provided quite some time ago. With new people joining the department and new project perhaps needing some additional resource, the listing below identifies a number of websites that have terrific newsletters, blogs, funding opportunities, data, and much more – things you might be very interested in receiving on a regular basis. From data visualization to current and hot topic healthcare information, there’s something for everyone on this list. We’re putting together a listing of sites where local, state, and national data can be easily had. If you have some favorites of your own that you’d like to share, please send these to Judy Savageau and we’ll consider having a new link on our research web pages where we highlight these many great opportunities to obtain info that’s relevant to the work we do. Enjoy!

Places to Register for Newsletters, Blog Posts, Resources, and much more:

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (http://www.ahrq.gov)
• American Evaluation Association (AEA): webinars, coffee break brief webinars, AEA365 daily tips of the day blogs on content areas, methods, etc.; other professional development opportunities, and more (http://www.eval.org)
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation (https://www.bluecrossma.org/medical-policies)
• CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov)
• Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS); policy center for advancing innovations for health care delivery for low-income Americans (https://www.chcs.org)
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USCMS/subscriber/new?topic_id=USCMS_610)
• Community Engagement and Resource Section of the UMMS CCTS (part of the CTSA): provides community statistics resources and much more (CommunityEngagement@umassmed.edu) (communityengagement@list.umassmed.edu)
• Evergreen Data: Intentional Reporting and Data Visualization – like the AEA and SocialCops, this site has many free blogs and how to’s for displaying data creatively and getting away from the text-heavy technical reports; webinars are rarely free (https://stephanieevergreen.com)
• Fresh Spectrum: Like Stephanie Evergreen, Chris Lysy is an evaluator (and cartoonist) who makes data visualization look easy. He offers many classes (not always free) and has a blog/news postings that are worth subscribing to at: https://www.freshspectrum.com.
• Health Affairs Today (healthaffairstoday@healthaffairs.org)
• iSPARC (Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center – UMMS, Department of Psychiatry): host a # of webinars and have a newsletter (sparc@umassmed.edu) (http://www.umassmed.edu/sparc)
• Kaiser Family Foundation: health policy news and analysis (http://www.kff.org)
• Modern Healthcare (https://www.modernhealthcare.com/)
• Mathematica Policy Research (communications@mathematica-mpr.com)
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (http://www.rwjf.org)
• SocialCops Academy: like the AEA, many great (and free) webinars and downloaded materials with a focus on all types of methods for survey development and data collection (https://www.socialcops.com)
• The Commonwealth Fund (https://www.commonwealthfund.org)

Trying to Keep Up with the Literature?

With great input and suggestions from many of you, the department now pulls together the tables of contents (TOCs) for 25 medical journals and distributes this bundle monthly to a select listserv that people can easily sign up for. The TOCs include Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatric, and OB/Gyn journals as well as preventive medicine and community health journals, health policy, addiction medicine, medical education, plus JAMA and NEJM. We are open to adding more journals if there’s an interest expressed! Take a look at what's been posted in the past several months by going to the department's web pages under the section on Research: www.umassmed.edu/fmch/research. If you’d like to be on the distribution list, please send an email to Judy Savageau at (judith.savageau@umassmed.edu).

Congratulations to our Sports Medicine Team!

The Sports Medicine Fellowship Match Day was held on Wednesday January 11^th.

We are pleased to announce another successful match for the Sports and Exercise Medicine Fellowship. With a record number of over 100 applicants this year, we are proud to announce matching with two of our top candidates in Nick Martin and Sam Cohen .

• Nicholas Martin, MD, is a PGY-3 Worcester Family Medicine Resident at the Barre Family Health Center. He is a Northeastern University graduate as well as well as a proud UMass Chan Medical School alum. 
• Samuel Cohen, DO, is currently a PGY-3 at the Boston Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program.  He went to Tufts for undergrad and then went to the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in NY.  

Both were outstanding applicants with great attitudes and experience – we are thrilled to have them start with us this July 1st, 2023! Additionally, congratulations go out to our FFMR residents Paul Kehoe and Matt Migliozzi, as well as Craig Pille of WFMR who were all successful in the Sports Medicine Match.  Paul and Matt will be headed to Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, and Craig will be off to Baltimore, at the University of Maryland. Much gratitude to the whole sports medicine faculty, fellow and administrative team that provides such a strong residency curriculum, as well as outstanding fellowship program.   

SAVE THE DATE: The MassAFP Annual Meeting and Spring Refresher will be

March 24-25. See the attached flyer for more details or go to: massafp.org. 

Manju Mahajan is co-chair of the MassAFP Education Committee. 

The Chancellor’s Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion is bestowed annually upon an individual or group exemplifying characteristics embodied in UMass Chan’s diversity statement and values. The Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion award will be presented at the Medical School’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Any questions may be directed to the Diversity and Inclusion Office at 508-856-2179 or diversity@umassmed.edu.

Mindfulness and Compassion During Tumultuous Times - Essential Tools to Remain Steady and Whole, presented by Paula Gardiner, MD, MPH, CMMT and Gail Gazelle, MD, MCC, CMMT.

Friday, May 5, 2023, 9:00 am - 3:30 pm (ET)

At this in-person program, you will acquire practical strategies to quiet your mind and gain mastery over worries and self-doubt. You’ll learn about the neuroscience behind mindfulness and meditation, and practice with a variety of readily accessible tools that will help you attain calm, clarity, and the balance you need to build resilience and avoid physician burnout. Event Info (massmed.org)

Presentations & Publications

Ekaterina Pivovarova, Ph.D, and Alexandra Boland, B.A, published an article in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction treatment based on their work which examined the experiences of drug treatment court staff in referring to and working with community MOUD providers. “Facilitators and barriers to collaboration between drug courts and community-based medication for opioid use disorder providers.” See reference: Pivovarova, E., Taxman, F. S., Boland, A.K., Smelson, D.A., Lemon, S. C., & Friedmann, P.D. Facilitators and barriers to collaboration between drug courts and community-based medication for opioid use disorder providers.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2949875922000212 

Department Member Recognition

Ekaterina Pivovarova Ph.D, was awarded the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Pilot Project Program award to conduct research titled “Comparative Effectiveness of In-Jail Therapeutic Community Treatment to Extended-Release Naltrexone on Longitudinal Health and Legal Outcomes.” This is the first research program to establish a collaboration between UMass researchers and the Worcester Jail House of Corrections. The study will examine health-related and legal outcomes from addiction treatments provided during incarceration.

Frankly Speaking Podcast

A weekly Podcast series covering newsworthy topics in primary care medicine.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frankly-speaking-about-family-medicine/id1194659367.

Please join us for an overview: Brain training activities have been advocated to slow or prevent cognitive decline. Crossword puzzles can be cognitively demanding and have recently been shown to be superior to some of the grain training activities that have been promoted on apps and websites. Join us for discussion on how to counsel patients looking to improve their cognitive function. Guest: Alan M. Ehrlich, MD, FAAFP, presents: "5-Across: A9-Letter Word That Can Improve Cognitive Function". - Frankly Speaking Ep 312.

Clinical Services Spotlight:

CLINICAL UPDATES

Highest # of referrals via CommunityHELP: Hahnemann Family Health Center

Congratulations! We have a great showing for our practices. Kudos to HFHC for having the highest number of referrals to help patients with issues related to social determinants of health.

1st place: HFHC efforts were led by Dr. Sonia Marcello, Dr. Rachel Ceccarelli, Dr. Craig Pille, Dr. Jeremy Vincent, Dr. Patrick Tolosky, and Dr. Conner Soderquist.

2nd place: Barre Family Health Center - Shannon Hill, Chelsea Holmes, and Taylor Strachan 

3rd place: Benedict Internal Medicine - Community Health Worker, Maeghan Kelly 

Department Climate Survey- Reminder to Participate

The Department climate survey is open and your input matters. Check your email for the 2023 survey, and please take 10-15 minutes to let us know your opinion on how we handle racism, implicit bias, and microaggression and macroaggression. To those who have completed the survey, thank you!

COVID-19 US

• Reinfection with COVID is becoming more prevalent, especially with new variants.
• The dominant variant is XBB.1.5 with BQ.1.1 following second. 
• US COVID numbers per day up to 100.1 per 100,000 population.

COVID-19 MA

• MA had 6,804 COVID cases in the last 7 days.
• The 7-day average percent positivity is 10.86%.
• 349 patients are admitted with primary COVID, and 1,060 hospitalized patients with COVID diagnosis.

COVID UMMMC

• Current 7-day positivity rate 9.7%.
• The 7-day average of COVID positive inpatients is 49.
• Of the 49, 73% are fully vaccinated.
• In acute care, there are 26 with 18 fully vaccinated. 
• In the ICU there are 7 COVID positive with 7 fully vaccinated. 

Wellness Resources

The Caring for the Caregiver Program provides resources such as the Caregiver Support Line (508-334-HELP) and The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which offers a variety of services and supports (including virtual peer support and wellness tips. EAP can be accessed at 866-263-3525, or www.LiveandWorkWell.com, [company code UmassMemorial]. More information is available on the Caring for the Caregiver page.