HJBR Nov/Dec 2020

38 NOV / DEC 2020  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   Healthcare Briefs reduce the stigma of addictive disorders. Kanter is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, former medical director of the Health Care for the Homeless clinic in New Orleans, and assistant professor of medicine at both LSU Health Sciences Center and Tulane School of Medicine. CIS Celebrates 37 Years of Cardiovascular Care Cardiovascular Institute of the South (CIS) cele- brates its 37th anniversary of providing advanced cardiovascular care to communities in south Lou- isiana and beyond. CIS began with the vision of Dr. Craig Walker, who started the practice in Houma, La. in 1983. Since then, CIS has grown to more than 65 phy- sicians, 900 team members, 20 locations, and nine telecardiology sites across Louisiana and Mississippi. CIS treats all forms of vascular disease, includ- ing heart disease, peripheral artery disease, and venous disease in the legs, as well as valve dis- ease and heart arrhythmias. CIS is known for many cardiovascular “firsts” such as the first peripheral stent trial in 1988 and the first coronary stent trial in 1989. “From the beginning, we sought out new techniques and helped to develop techniques to better care for our patients,” said Walker. Most recently, CIS has utilized its telemedi- cine capabilities through its Virtual Care Center in Lafayette to provide telecardiology visits to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. CIS was also named as one of the Best Places to Work in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare. CIS continues to grow and expand with the upcoming Ambu- latory Surgery Center in Gray, La., new expert physicians joining the team, new telecardiology partnerships with rural hospitals, and expansions at both the Thibodaux and Baton Rouge clinics. “I take great pride in the fact that CIS has grown into one of the largest and most comprehensive cardiovascular programs anywhere in the world,” said Walker. Louisiana Public Health Institute, University of California San Francisco Receive Nearly $5M for COVID-19 Research, Analysis The Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) launched a patient-driven study to analyze how COVID-19-related policies affect individuals and the spread of the disease. The study is made pos- sible through a funding award of $4,979,798 from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Insti- tute (PCORI). The two-year collaborative project consists of two data collection efforts. The first occurs through the COVID-19 Citizen Science mobile app-based study developed by Mark Pletcher, MD, MPH, Jeff Olgin, MD, and Gregory Marcus, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco. The mobile app delivers short daily and weekly surveys to gain insight into respondents’ physi- cal and mental health, behaviors, and experience with local policies related to slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. The second project also analyzes electronic health records and insurance claims data from those who consent. It pulls data from the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Net- work (PCORnet) and other health networks with robust electronic health record systems to ensure a diverse patient population. The two data sets together will shed light on which policies are most effective at reducing harm from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The goal of our COVID-19 Policy Study is to get information to policymakers about how peo- ple are currently suffering and what they need during this difficult time,” said Pletcher, a pro- fessor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the director of informatics and research innovation at the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. “Policymak- ers need better information so they can make better policy decisions in the face of the evolv- ing pandemic.” While policymakers have daily COVID-19 case data, there is no organized way for them to hear from their constituents about the impact of their policies. This research will gather self-reported data on how shelter-in-place and reopening strat- egies affect participants’ finances, employment, and housing. It will also study how access to test- ing and contact tracing vary across the rural and urban, Black, Latinx, and white communities. The study includes community partnerships and paid advertising to drive recruitment among Black and Latinx communities, which have been dispropor- tionately affected by COVID-19. “The information we collect will allow us to see how the different state-wide COVID-19 response strategies affect individuals living in those states,” said Thomas Carton, chief data officer at LPHI and principal investigator of the Research Action for Health Network (REACHnet), a member network of PCORnet. “The information from the surveys, cross-referenced with electronic health record and insurance claims data, allows us to investi- gate the range of impact by gender, race, socio- economic status, and more, to further understand health disparities highlighted by the pandemic.” While the mobile app is open to all adults, the PCORnet-specific effort will recruit partic- ipants from seven U.S. states with diverse pol- icies, demographics, and disease-transmission dynamics. Survey data on behaviors, beliefs, test- ing, and symptoms of COVID-19 will be linked, for participants who consent, to electronic health records and claims data. The policy research will take place in California, Florida, Louisiana, Missis- sippi, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas. Study design, data collection, recruitment, and dissemination strategies are shaped in part by an advisory board that includes Citizen Scientists representing vulnerable communities and poli- cymakers from states, counties, and health sys- tems for whom these results will be immediately actionable. Those interested in participating in the COVID- 19 Citizen Science Study can do so by visiting https://eureka.app.link/covid19 (if prompted, enter the study key: covid) or by texting “COVID” to 41411. n Joseph Kanter, MD