Ryan Coller, MD, MPH, Principal Investigator, and Nicole Werner, PhD (Industrial & Systems Engineering), Co-PI, and Mary Ehlenbach, MD, Collaborator, were recently awarded a one-year, $75,000 grant from the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, (ICTR), Clinical & Community Outcomes Research Pilot (CCOR) for their project entitled, “Participatory Design of a Learning Health System to Improve Medically Complex Enteral Tube Care.” In this project, the team proposes to develop a caregiver learning health system (LHS) to support in-home caregiving to improve care of children with medical complexity and family health, using enteral care as a model case. An LHS is an innovative strategy that links systematically collected real-world data with evidence to inform care and improve outcomes. Our caregiver LHS, @HOMEv1, uses caregiver-generated data from a mobile application on smartphones or tablets to shape future caregiving. We hypothesize that @HOMEv1 will improve enteral tube processes and outcomes by bolstering caregiver self-efficacy, and increasing the number and breadth of evidence-informed strategies at the caregiver’s disposal. Higher self-efficacy will lead directly to lower caregiver stress and fewer enteral tube-related hospitalizations and ED visits.
Christine Sorenson, PhD, Principal Investigator, has been awarded a 1-year, $50,000 Translational Basic & Clinical Pilot Award from the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), for her project entitled “BIM Polymorphisms Impact on anti-VEGF Therapy for Neovascular AMD”. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), is a progressive and degenerative disease that affects individuals typically over the age of 60 leading to vision loss. The proangiogenic activity of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) contributes to the pathogenesis of neovascular AMD (nAMD) which is why anti-VEGF therapy is the standard of care for these patients. Dr. Sorenson, along with collaborators Drs. Nader Sheibani and Barbara Blodi of the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, aim to determine whether genetic variation in BIM expression (BIM is a pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family member), contributes to anti-VEGF therapy failure in non-responsive nAMD patients.
Link to full list of ICTR Pilot awardees: https://ictr.wisc.edu/26-pilot-awards-totaling-1-3-million-made-in-2019/