Table of Contents

Upcoming Events

Focus of the Week - Research

Announcements

Department Member Recognition

Faculty Presentations/Publications

Frankly Speaking Podcast

Clinical Services Spotlight

Upcoming Events

FMCH Grand Rounds

Tuesday, October 25th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm. "Top Articles in Sports and Exercise Medicine Year in Review 2021", presented by Lee Mancini, MD, FAAFP, CSCS*D, CSN.

Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/191986273?pwd=NEtlZmNkdWlSUGwyeTJQU3dCeUs1QT09

Monthly Research Forum – If you would like to present at one of our upcoming forums, please let Judy Savageau know. These are held on the 3rd Friday of the month, from 12:00-1:00pm. When more of us are on campus, we will do these live (with lunch), but for right now they will continue to be held via zoom. Any 'works in progress' are great for getting some input from the attendees about possible next steps and feedback on what you have done so far!

Resources for Healthcare Information: Newsletters, Blogs, Funding Opportunities, Data and more…. 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. This is Part 1 of 2 of these listings – next month when ‘research’ is being featured in the Tuesday Talk, we’ll supply you with a number 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 ([email protected]) ([email protected])
• 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 ([email protected])
• iSPARC (Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center – UMMS, Department of Psychiatry): host a # of webinars and have a newsletter ([email protected]) (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 ([email protected])
• 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)

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 ([email protected]) and we’ll include them in the next set of updates. We would love to highlight all of your great work!

Trying to Keep Up with the Literature?

The department pulls together the tables of contents (TOCs) for about 15 medical journals and distributes this bundle monthly to a select listserv that people can easily sign up for. The TOCs include 4-5 FM journals, JAMA, NEJM, AJPH, Health Affairs, Medical Care, JGIM, Am J Prev Med, key Pediatrics and key OB/Gyn journals, Addiction Medicine, and many more – lots of great articles that can easily be accessed through links within the bundle. We are also 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. You will see a tab in the left-hand margin for these TOC bundles that we post monthly: (www.umassmed.edu/fmch/research). If you’d like to be on the distribution list, please send an email to Judy Savageau at ([email protected]).

Gender Affirming Care Provider Self-Identification and Directory

MassHealth is collecting information from MassHealth providers who want to voluntarily self-identify as providers of gender-affirming services. The purpose of this effort is to help members find MassHealth providers who offer gender-affirming care services. Using this self-reported information, MassHealth intends to post an informal directory of MassHealth gender-affirming care providers on the publicly available gender-affirming-care web page (https://www.mass.gov/gender-affirming-care-for-masshealth-members), toward the end of this calendar year.

• If you are an active MassHealth provider who provides gender-affirming care and would like to self-identify as such, please fill out the form at https://www.mass.gov/forms/gender-affirming-care-provider-self-identifcation. While you may fill out the form at any time, it would be helpful if you can do so by November 15, 2022.
• If you are a MassHealth provider who had previously self-identified as a MassHealth provider of gender-affirming care, but would like to be removed from this gender-affirming care provider directory before the initial posting, please email [email protected] with the subject line “gender-affirming care provider form removal,” by November 15, 2022.

For information about gender-affirming surgeries and hair removal as a treatment for gender dysphoria, visit MassHealth’s Guidelines for Medical Necessity Determination for Gender-Affirming Surgery and Guidelines for Medical Necessity Determination for Hair Removal, found at https://www.mass.gov/lists/masshealth-guidelines-for-medical-necessity-determination.

Transitions/Open Medical Director position at Benedict From Josephine Fowler, MD, MBA: 

I am pleased to share that the UMass Chan has increased its support of the important role of the 3rd year clerkship directors. As a result, Dr. Mary Lindholm will be stepping down from her medical director role and shifting her time to, as she says, "care for her patients and care for the clerkship." Mary has served as Benedict's Medical Director for five years and I am grateful for her leadership. Mary has led Benedict to excellence in quality and patient care. Anyone from the Benedict practice who is interested in stepping into this role should contact me for more information at [email protected].

Drs. Judson Brewer and Lia Antico in conjunction with the Brown Mindfulness Center is conducting a research study to test if a short mindfulness-based training is effective at reducing burnout in physicians. Participants must be physicians. If you are a physician and you are interested in helping us to learn about burnout, please contact Brown affiliated contact person at [email protected]. Use of this message for recruiting participants has been approved by Brown's Human Research Protection Program. Protocol # 2022003296. 

 Faculty Presentations/Publications

In a podcast produced by Health Affairs, Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviewed Linda Long-Bellil, PhD, JD, on an overview paper Dr. Long-Beilli and co-authors published in the October 2022 issue of Health Affairs. The authors found that health disparities among people with disabilities exist along race, gender and sexual orientation lines. 

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hp20221011.140083/full/

The New England AIDS Education and Training Center (NEAETC) was asked to contribute a Best Practice related to their work, Practice Transformation: Improvements in Outcomes Along the HIV Care Continuum at Clinics in New England. The Best Practices gather and share emerging and established approaches that work to improve HIV care and services in Ryan White funded settings to support replication by others. 

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: Polypharmacy is a burden on patients with dementia. Adverse drug reactions, side effects, the cost, and inappropriate medications that may lead to falls and morbidity/mortality may be conferring more harm than benefit. Unfortunately, 44% of men and 57% of women >65 years take five or more nonprescription and/or prescription medications per day. Join us as we discuss methods for deprescribing polypharmacy in this patient population. Guest: Jill M. Terrien, PhD, ANP-BC, presents: "Deprescribing in Patients with Dementia: Less Is More". - Frankly Speaking Ep 299.

COVID-19 UPDATES

New Variants for COVID-19

• Omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 account for 16% of variants at this time. BA.5 remains the dominant strain in the US.
• Variants are expected to rapidly rise as they have in Europe recently, and they may contribute to a winter surge.

COVID-19 US

• In the US, the 7-day death average is 388.
• Total new cases on 10/23 was 5,091.
• Total cases 99,071,496 with 1,092,795 deaths.

COVID-19 MA

• Total cases: 2,042,801 with 21,923 deaths.
• The number of cases primarily admitted for COVID: 253; total hospitalized with COVID: 868.
• There are 85 patients in the ICU; 34 patients intubated.
• There are 58 new confirmed deaths in the last 7 days.

COVID-19 UMass

• ​Current COVID-19 positive inpatients at Medical Center: 65 (including 6 in the ICU); systemwide: 83 (including 7 in the ICU)
• COVID-19 positive employees rolling average: 13

Telehealth Extension through 2023

• MassHealth and Point32 Health have expanded parity for telehealth until September 2023.
• The Biden Administration has extended telehealth through 2023 for certain Medicare services.
• BCBS announced it will cover telehealth at 80% of the face-to-face rate as of January 1, 2023.
• State-by-State allowances for the Emergency period - recent update attached detailing services still eligible for telehealth services in Mass.

Domestic Violence Awareness

• This is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
• The National Hotline phone number for domestic violence is 1-800-799-7233.
• Worcester County resources can be found at this link:

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/list-of-domestic-violence-services-by-massachusetts-county#worcester-county-

RSV and Children

• RSV is currently overwhelming children's hospitals. 
• Decreasing the risk of RSV
• Wash your hands.
• Keep your hands off your face.
• Avoid close contact with sick persons.
• Cover your mouth for coughs and sneezes.
• Clean surfaces.
• If sick, stay home.

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.