Projects Archive - CHA

Fall 2021 Project Awards

OSF HealthCare Little Company of Mary Medical Center Community Engagement Project

• Susan Stirling, Adjunct Associate Professor, Design Research, University of Illinois Chicago
• Earl Power-Murphy, Coordinator Innovation-Education Specialist, OSF HealthCare
  
  

Historically hospitals have had challenges engaging with the communities they serve. Focusing on community engagement has become important, as we face complex public health challenges that stretch and test the capacity and resilience of health systems and the populations they serve. "Authentic engagement" involves a process where hospital leaders do less leading and more listening in order to build health care offerings that better fit the community.

The goal of our project is to build on the notion of "authentic engagement" and showcase findings from our year-long investigation into authentic community engagement. We will create an interactive exhibit, and a roadmap, to help facilitate the process of authentic community engagement. Our proposed solution will address this historic gap between hospitals and their communities by including all stakeholders (i.e., hospital leaders, clinicians, and staff, as well as community leaders and residents). Our solution will provide a framework for critical conversations and action steps for all invested. The result will be meaningful, long-lasting partnerships that lead to improved health outcomes for the community.

Leveraging Community Resources to Screen for Social and Structural Determinants of Health to Promote Coordinated Community Interventions

• Mark Hallenbeck, OSF HealthCare Lab Project Lead, UIC Innovation Center
• Earl Power-Murphy, Coordinator Innovation-Education Specialist, OSF HealthCare
• Emina Hadzic, Graduate Assistant, University of Illinois Chicago
• MiKealy Thomas, Research Assistant, University of Illinois Chicago
• Maddie Demo, Research Assistant, University of Illinois Chicago
  
  

Current methods of determining SDoH, particularly in underserved low-income areas are inadequate. Before we can address SDoH, we need to be able to properly identify patients who have these barriers. Hence, screening becomes very important. Although there are well-established medical screening programs such as those for breast and colon cancer, there is no universal screening for SDoH. We are missing a significant portion of the population that does not interact directly with the health care systems. The parts of the population that we are missing are often the ones that are at highest risk, making it vital to understand their needs. We see this as the primary opportunity for the innovation we propose.

Exploring Alternative Care Models for Primary Care, Focused on ACSC in Low-Income, Southside Chicago Communities

• Michael Scott, PhD, Innovation Education Director, UIC Innovation Center
• Earl Power-Murphy, Coordinator Innovation-Education Specialist, OSF HealthCare
• Marco Susani, Clinical Professor, Industrial Design, University of Illinois Chicago
• Samantha Melchori, Adjunct Lecturer, University of Illinois Chicago, Global Operations Manager, Caterpillar Mining
• Katie Carow, Professor, University of Illinois Chicago
• Kyle Formella, Director Medical Visualization, OSF HealthCare
  
  

Current methods of delivering primary care, particularly in underserved low-income areas, lead to high rates of Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSC). These conditions represent a significant contributor to increasing hospital expenditures and a major load on health care systems. These diseases tend to lead to many avoidable hospitalizations of those suffered from chronic diseases that could be avoided by better management. Additionally, it prevents individuals from engaging with their health care system in a positive, proactive way as opposed to negative and reactive.

Traditional medical approaches address symptoms of ACSC but do not address the root societal causes. Health care must shift to engage in addressing these root causes to decrease the burden on the system, while improving outcomes overall with sustainable business models. After performing a review of existing solutions, trends and emerging technologies, this project will develop new ways to look at primary care that can better engage with this underserved audience.

IPE Patient Discharge Curriculum

• Dawn Mosher, DNP, RN, CHSE, OSF HealthCare
• Radhika Sreedhar, MD, MS, FACPMS, UIC College of Medicine
• Linda Chang, PharmD, MCPS, CDE, MPH, Associate Professor, University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford
• Martin MacDowell, Research Associate Professor, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois Chicago
• Paul Chastain, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor, Associate Director of Simulation Events and Development, University of Illinois College of Medicine
  
  

GAP: Patients inability for self-management and patient lack of awareness of whom to contact after discharge from the hospital.

Solution: Standardized simulation of patient discharge will allow team members to work collaboratively, improve engagement with the simulated patient, address the social determinants of health and provide education at the time of discharge which in the long term can reduce readmissions. The interprofessional teams will consist of medical students, pharmacy students and nursing students.

Methods to verify that aims are met: Checklists created by multidisciplinary teams will be used to assess student's level of competency and debrief sessions will be used to help all students meet the outcomes. Knowledge and attitudes will be assessed using pre and post curriculum surveys. Skills will be assessed during the simulation encounter.

Project ACTT: Autism Caregiver Telehealth Training

• Emily Gregori, Assistant Professor, Special Education, University of Illinois Chicago
• Amanda Estes, Director Portfolio Services, OSF HealthCare
• Holly Swearingian, MSN, PCNS-BC, Manager Clinical Operations, Autism Collective
  
  

Adolescents and adults with ASD display deficits in academics, communication, functional skills, social behavior, and problematic behaviors that require intensive and individualized assessment and intervention to remediate. However, there is a critical shortage of high-quality intervention services for adolescents and adults with ASD. Telehealth is a method for increasing access to essential applied behavioral health services using distance technology. While research has shown that telehealth is an effective method for improving outcomes for young children with autism, there are no telehealth programs that provide the coordinated and comprehensive care needed by the adolescent and adult population. The proposed program will develop an innovative telehealth model that provides coordinated and comprehensive applied behavioral assessment and intervention to adolescents and adults with autism. The program will be developed using an iterative mixed-methods approach that integrates critical aspects of applied behavioral assessment and intervention with comprehensive assessment. The project will also test the efficacy of the program through an experimental single-case study. Capitalizing on expertise from staff across organizations, the proposed project will result in a validated approach for providing services to adolescents and adults with ASD and their caregivers with quantitative and qualitative data on the program's efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability.

Social Determinants of Health Care Utilization: A Big Data Predictive Modeling Approach

• Sage Kim, PhD, Associate Professor, Health Policy and Administration
• Sarah Stewart de Ramirez, MD, MPH, MSc, Associate Dean for Population Health Equity Innovation, University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria
• Arash Jalali, PhD Student, University of Illinois Chicago
• Karl Kochendorfer, MD, FAAFP, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, Chief Health Information Officer, UI Hospital and Clinics
  
  

Neighborhood social, economic, and built environmental factors contribute to individual residents' health outcomes. Health inequities in access to care and health outcomes, particularly among racial/ethnic minority communities, persist. Minority communities have great social and economic needs, while experiencing multiple health concerns. The limited success in reducing health disparities is partly due to the focus on individual behaviors, ignoring the role of social and structural factors in producing health inequities.

Institutions and organizations bridge network ties and help link cross-class and cross-racial relationships. Through community organizations, residents in resource-poor communities can be linked to wider networks of services and resources external to their community, which then increases residents' opportunities to gain access to social capital that these individuals would have not possessed. However, hospital catchment areas are often dependent on where patients are coming from, rather than what community needs are. The premise of this study is that coordinated and organized plans for all Chicago hospital's CHNAs will help develop collaborative plans for equitable hospital coverage. This proposed study aims to generate data necessary to inform proactive plans to address social determinants of health needs of communities.

Bridging the Health Care Gap for the Homeless through Telemedicine

• Faria Munir, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois Chicago
• Scott Barrows, Design Lab Lead, OSF HealthCare
• Mary Stapel, MD, Physician, OSF HealthCare
  
  

By implementing telemedicine tablet kiosks in Chicago homeless shelters, there will be an increase in access to health care in this population measured by tablet kiosk use within 6 months and 1 year of project implementation. The aim of the project is to improve health by addressing social determinants of health; this will be achieved by providing quality health care access in a consistent, attainable location. Secondary outcomes will include the reduction of emergency department and urgent care services utilized by the study population and satisfaction of services provided by surveying the study population.

Does Providing Free Transportation To Primary Care Visits Improve Outcomes? A Pilot Program in Chicago's Washington Heights Neighborhood

• Sarah Donohue, PhD, Director, University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria
• Nathan Pritzker, MBA, Stratetic Program Manager, OSF HealthCare
• Benjamin Shaw, PhD, MPH, Director of Community Health Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago
• Uchechi Mitchell, PhD, MSPH, Assistant Professor, Community Health Services, University of Illinois Chicago
• Naoko Muramatsu, PhD, Professor, Community Health Services, University of Illinois Chicago
• Betsy Cliff, PhD, Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Administration, University of Illinois Chicago
• Jennifer Kwok, PhD, Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Administration, University of Illinois Chicago
• Emily Stiehl, PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Administration, University of Illinois Chicago
  
  

OSF HealthCare has begun a journey of health care innovation in the south side of Chicago where many different socioeconomic factors play a key part in engagement with health care. This population is largely older, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and primary care is underutilized while a nearby ED is over-utilized. OSF HealthCare has a vested interest in achieving better health outcomes for the populations in the Washington Heights area and is investing in care access within this neighborhood. In an effort to encourage traffic to the primary care office OSF HealthCare would like study the impact on offering free transportation to the primary care office.

The focus of this proposal is to study the impact of increasing access to primary and preventative care, by eliminating the barrier of transportation. Specifically, the primary objective of this proposal is to determine if free transport to and from the medical office site drives enough of a change in behavior to impact key metrics including risk-based arrangements, health outcomes, and follow-up visits. Effectively scaled, the objective of this program would be to create savings and new revenue for the organization. This will do done by establishing an effective baseline of behavior, and then quantifying a change in that behavior throughout the duration of the pilot. This project will establish metrics for health outcomes, ED/PCP utilization, and will examine the feasibility and sustainability of such a program.