Opportunities for enhanced collaboration were revealed as leaders from USF Health and the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital gathered for a panel discussion and symposium May 23 —  a prelude to the annual Haley VA Research Day held May 24.

A panel of leaders from USF Health and James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital met to discuss ways to strengthen research collaborations between the two institutions. The panel and symposium preceded the hospital’s annual VA Research Day on March 24.

Senior leaders from USF Health and the Haley VA  Hospital each shared their current research collaborations, as well as ideas for future endeavors. Representing USF Health were Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine; Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, dean of the College of Nursing; Donna Petersen, ScD, dean of the College of Public Health; and Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the College of Pharmacy.  Representing the Haley VA were Joe Battle, director of  the hospital and its clinics; Robert Campbell, JD, MPH, PhD, acting associate chief of staff; Gail Powell-Cope, PhD, ARNP, co-director of the Center of Innovation on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (CINDRR); and Edward Cutolo, Jr., MD, chief of staff.

The news that seemed to generate the most buzz was the availability of data from the VA – big data. The Veterans Administration is capturing information for U.S. veterans, likely the largest compilation of population data that touches all 50 states and is being gathered across time.

Dr. Robert Campbell, acting associate chief of staff at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, says the hospital has about 200 ongoing research projects at any given time.

“My story today is big data, health informatics, and predictive analytics,” said Dr. Campbell, whose research emphasizes identifying patient and system-level risk factors associated with fall-related injuries and other adverse events.  “I’ve been here for 16 years and I fell in love with the big data the first day I arrived and realized they were compiling it at the (Houston) Texas VA. Over the decades, they’ve made it more and more transparent and readily available for researchers to use.”

Dr. Campbell said the challenge making all that data meaningful is doing a better job training researchers and clinicians in health informatics.

“Things as simple as appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of diagnosis and procedure coding and how they’re used in the real world, primarily for administrative purposes and secondarily for clinical research,” he said.

Dr. Charles Lockwood, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, said it makes sense for USF’s academic health center to strengthen its partnership with Haley VA, one of the busiest VA hospitals in the country, including jointly recruiting top researchers.

He shared a recent experience that underscored his point when he met with clinicians and “for the first time they saw what we meant by big data rather than hearing about it,” he said.

“It’s one thing to say we have millions and millions of records, encounters and discharges and they’re coded in the following way, but to see how the VA has systemically attempted to organize that information was a revelation. That only comes from taking the time to bring your collaborators over and show them the data and ask them what they’re interested in. There are a lot of strengths, but the weaknesses are that predictive analytics will require a clearer understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of those coding systems. It’s a work in progress and a dialogue that continues with our USF colleagues.”

Among the symposium presenters was Dr. Frank Kozel, a staff psychiatrist and associate investigator in the Center of Innovation on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (CINDRR) at James A. Haley Veterans’s Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at USF Health. He spoke about a randomized trial using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to augment combat processing therapy in combat veterans with PTSD.

USF Health’s Dr. Lockwood emphasized that students and residents exposed to faculty and staff conducting research are exposed the rigors of scientific inquiry and more likely to question the validity of approaches to  diagnosis and treatment and probe for evidence.

“On a broad scale, research improves health by demanding evidence-based care,” he said. “At the individual level, it can make you a better nurse, doctor, pharmacist, public health practitioner, physical therapist — a better health care provider — by challenging assumptions.”

Dr. Lockwood said it makes sense for USF’s academic health center to strengthen its partnership with Haley VA, one of the busiest VA hospitals in the country, including jointly recruiting top basic science, translational and clinical researchers.

“Given the VA’s access to an enormous amount of data, extraordinary comparative effectiveness research and clinical trials, its interest in neuroscience, which we are so committed to on our side of the campus, as well as common interests in rehabilitation, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, we’d be foolish not to work together,” he said.  “We have an obligation, in particular, to take the very best care of our veterans.”

Dr. Denise Cooper is a professor of molecular medicine at the Morsani College of Medicine whose research is supported in part by the VA. She spoke about the use of exosomes from human adipose-derived stem cells in wound healing.

The other panelists also addressed the many advantages of more collaboration among researchers from both the VA and USF Health. And threading the narrative for these ideas – such as building a common foundation that includes representatives who meet regularly to share information and ideas – was panel moderator Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, MBA, Distinguished Health Professor at USF and research career scientist at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.

“I’m delighted that both our organizations have come together today,” said Dr. Mohapatra, “Our goal is to start a dialogue between the VA and USF that leads to something more meaningful, offering more collaboration of education, clinical care and research.”

Participating in the VA Research Day’s poster presentations were, from left: Nikita Patel, PhD, and Subhra Mohapatra, PhD, both associate professors of molecular medicine; Beth Grimmig, a PhD student in integrated biomedical sciences at MCOM (Dr. Bickford’s graduate student); Paula Bickford, PhD, professor of neurosciences at the USF Health Center for Excellence in Aging and Brain Repair and VA senior research career scientist; and Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, Distinguished Health Professor at USF and VA research career scientist.

Following the panel discussion, several researchers affiliated with both USF (medicine, public health, biomedical engineering) and the VA, presented highlights of their research.  Their symposium topics ranged from applying human adipose-derived stem cell exosomes in wound healing, to ways the growth factor GCSF promotes brain repair following traumatic brain injury, to trends in data mining and knowledge discovery.

The next day, March 24, more than 50 poster presentations were on display in the hospital’s auditorium for VA Research Day.

Dr. Jamie Morano, (left) an infectious diseases physician at Morsani College of Medicine and James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, explains her team’s research poster.

Among the presenters was Jamie Morano, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and a physician at the Haley VA Hospital.  Dr. Morano’s study tapped into a powerful VA data tool to analyze the outcomes of hepatitis C virus treatment among Tampa Bay veterans with hepatitis C and HIV.

“We have residents and fellows who cross train at the VA and Morsani College of Medicine,” Dr. Morano said, “so it’s a great opportunity to build upon collaborative research that benefits both institutions.”

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Anne DeLotto Baier contributed to this article.
Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications and Marketing

At CAMLS, the student teams respond to a series of patient care scenarios including a mock cardiac arrest

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Working with a mere 18 months of knowledge and training, second-year USF Pharmacy students made life-or-death decisions in only seconds when they participated in a mock cardiac arrest situation designed to show the different phases of care that pharmacists are involved in for patient care.

The afternoon-long exercise was one of the first virtual patient exercises for the pharmacy students and took place March 18 at USF’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) in downtown Tampa.

The goal of the program was to tie in the students’ communications skills and knowledge of transitions of care with health informatics, said Erini Serag-Bolos, PharmD, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy.

“This is the first opportunity students have had to put all the tools they’ve learned so far to use,” Dr. Serag-Bolos said “The point is to give them more realistic insight into pharmacists’ various roles across time with a patient.”

The exercise included 10 work stations, most of which played out a patient scenario across time, from the patient first entering the emergency room to follow up care in an outpatient setting. The scenario helped students put into practice the many and varying roles a pharmacist would experience with each patient, including counseling, medication reconciliation, involvement in a cardiac arrest code, pharmaceutical calculations and compatibility, and prescription verification.

“When creating this activity, we wanted to expose them early on and the activity really opened up their eyes to various roles a pharmacist could have in different levels of care and settings – all of course while still having fun with their team,” said Aimon Miranda, PharmD, BCPS, assistant professor.

Working in groups of four to five, students spent five minutes at each station, with some students starting with the emergency room station and others starting at various points in between. By the end, each student completed the entire scenario and pieced all the stations together.

“Students dove into critical points of the patient’s history that they could encounter in their job and that focused on error reduction, patient safety, patient-specific management plans, and health informatics,” Dr. Serag-Bolos said.

In addition, several stations featured standardized patients who acted out these medical scenarios.

“Standardized patients provided a different focus and were good opportunities for the students to practice the patient interview skills they have learned,” Dr. Serag-Bolos said.

To demonstrate just how unpredictable a day in the life of a pharmacist may be, one of the stations featured a simulator patient mannequin in cardiac arrest that students had to revive. This mannequin could be injected with medications, had a pulse, and was linked to a monitor that could be pre-programmed with certain heart rhythms that were displayed on a monitor.

With a faculty giving orders and providing condition updates of the patient in distress, the students were required to quickly and accurately prepare the medications needed. The patient code provided the most intense situation for the students to use their communication skills, which is the essence of working in teams, Dr. Serag-Bolos said.

“These students haven’t been trained yet for handling emergency code situations, so this definitely got their feet wet,” she said.

“Having no training in advanced cardiac life support, the students had to rely on knowledge and techniques taught in previous semesters,” said Shyam Gelot, PharmD, BCPS, assistant professor. “The students handled themselves very well and confidently during this stressful simulation.”

“Overall, the students did really well given that they had limited information and were expected to think on their feet at each station. In the code station, some students embraced the situation, despite their nerves, and dove in to help their team during the code,” Dr. Miranda said.

And the students agree.

“The ‘code’ scenario was probably my favorite part, but the most stressful,” said Theresa Trindade, a second-year pharmacy student. “The way I can describe this exercise succinctly is that it was a challenge. It forced us to think on our feet.”

At the end of the exercise, the students met with faculty in a nearby conference room to debrief on how well they performed, their reactions to the emergency, and the success, or failure, of communicating with their peers in order to benefit the patient.

“I thought the exercise was a great hands-on learning experience and was a good opportunity to apply, under a simulated clinical setting, the information I am learning in my lectures and in my readings,” said Phillip Bonet, also a second-year student.

“The most challenging aspect was the patient rooms because we had to figure out the level of care and what was going on with the patient,” Trindade added. “I think my group excelled in certain areas. For example, one of our group members who did the counseling for insulin did a really good job. We were less sure in the patient rooms where we had to make recommendations. I think this was a great learning exercise and showed us all the roles a pharmacist plays in patient care.”

Housed in the CAMLS Virtual Patient Care Center and both virtual inpatient and outpatient pharmacies, the venue provided a state-of-the-art backdrop for the transitions of care exercise. This facility provides an outstanding setting for the interprofessional program that pharmacy students take part in to hone communications skills with students from multiple educational tracks (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and physical therapy). These exercises offer more realistic views of how interprofessional healthcare teams care for patients, especially those who require multiple visits. To ensure optimal care and reduce hospital readmissions, patients’ therapeutic plans need to be reassessed as their conditions change. All of these reasons reinforce the fact that students should train in teams because they will likely work in teams throughout their careers.

The concept is part of USF College of Pharmacy’s innovative curriculum.

“I decided to attend USF COP because, from the various schools I was exploring, it seemed to me that USF had the most progressive program and would prepare me well for my future in the profession,” Bonet said. “The simulation activity at CAMLS as a second year student is a great example of this.”

Story by Sarah A. Worth, USF Health Office of Communications

Photos and video by Allyn DiVito, USF Health Information Systems

The list for high-demand jobs nearly always includes careers in health care. And among those, you’ll likely see health informatics, a field that is consistently in the top 10 growth areas for employment.

To help meet the ever growing demand for health informatics professionals, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine has begun offering a master’s degree that is completely online and has the unique advantage of being housed a medical school.

“USF Health has long been known for developing novel and innovative programs,” said Michael Barber, PhD, associate dean for USF Health’s Graduate and Postdoctoral program. “That same innovative quality is behind our new Master of Science Health Informatics program, the first in Florida – and maybe even the first in the country – that is associated with a medical school,” Dr. Barber said.

Michael Barber, PhD

With the aim of providing technological innovation to improve patient care, manage costs and comply with federal and state healthcare regulations, health informatics focuses on the use of information and information technology to support clinical care, health services, administration, research and education. It emphasizes the acquisition, storage, retrieval and utilization of clinical, administrative and financial information in healthcare.

The USF program is a new approach to helping meet the workforce needs, Dr. Barber said.

“Information is not shrinking but expanding, and at a rapid pace,” Dr. Barber said. “This kind of program helps keep up.”

What differentiates the USF medical informatics program is that it is based within a college of medicine, while most other programs are based in business or computer sciences schools, Dr. Barber said.

“This aspect alone gives our graduates a decided advantage when they into their careers,” he said.

The USF Health program is scheduled to begin in summer 2013 and aims to admit 50 students.

Students will have up to five years to complete the courses requirements, but they could complete it within as little as 18 months, if they’re schedule allows for the accelerated pace.

Ideal students are those already in the healthcare environment, Dr. Barber said.

“We are taking a holistic view of applicants and looking at the student’s overall credentials, such as if they are already in a STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) field, not just scores on the GRE exam or MCAT exam,” he said.

The degree will be from the USF Morsani College of Medicine and most of the faculty teachers are medical faculty. In addition, as part of the USF curriculum students have access to campus libraries and are welcome to attend graduation, Dr. Barber said.

“Even though this program is 100 percent online, students are more than welcome to walk at graduation.”

Visit their introductory web site for more information about the program.

TAMPA, FL  (Sept.  5, 2012) — USF Health is partnering with Bisk Education to offer a new online master’s degree  in Health Informatics, responding to the growing need for technology experts as the healthcare industry adopts electronic records.

“USF is proud to partner with Bisk to help drive innovation in healthcare,” said USF President Judy Genshaft, PhD. “There is a real need in today’s marketplace for employees who understand both healthcare and information science.”

The new program will fuse USF Health’s academic powers with Bisk’s online expertise. USF Health faculty members will teach the health informatics courses. Bisk will help adapt the USF Health’s traditional curriculum to an online environment with faculty-led video lectures and webcasts, online simulations, and real-time chat, group study, and discussion board tools.

Clockwise from top left: Andrew Titen, president and COO of Bisk Education; Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean, Morsani College of Medicine; Judy Genshaft, USF president; and Nathan Bisk, chairman and CEO of Bisk Education.

Nathan Bisk, chairman and CEO of Bisk Education, founded the company, which is now one of the nation’s leading developers and marketers of alternative and distance education programs. He said he is looking forward to working with USF Health on the project.

“Health informatics is something that is sweeping the health industry – and it’s pioneering for a medical school to offer such a degree online,” he said. “There’s going to be a big demand for this program. The challenges the healthcare industry faces in converting to paperless operations will require a new breed of health professionals trained in the latest laws and technologies.”

USF Health already is a leader in moving the healthcare industry toward using electronic health records with PaperFree Florida, a $6 million federal grant program to help doctors learn how to use the technology, said Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and CEO of USF Health.

“We’ve built USF Health around what’s going to be really obvious ten years from now and doing it today,” Dr. Klasko said. “What really brought us together is that Bisk has the same innovative values.”

Bisk Education CEO Nathan Bisk and USF President Judy Genshaft sign the partnership agreement to provide a new online master’s degree in health informatics.

According to Indeed.com, health information analysts earned an average of $81,000 in 2008, with a salary range of $34,000 to over $110,000.

Bisk designs high-quality educational courses by helping universities realize the potential for reaching students in an online environment, said Andrew B. Titen, president and chief operating officer of Bisk Education.

“We are all very excited about the new relationship with USF and look forward to launching this groundbreaking degree for a top tier research institution,” Titen said. “This is a partnership that will do many great things together.”

Students in the program could be Tampa Bay residents with career and family commitments that make it difficult for them to come to campus. But Bisk Education also will market the program worldwide, bringing students from far beyond Tampa Bay to learn from USF.

“We’re hoping this will lead to other degrees, which will extend USF’s reach worldwide,” Bisk said.

Courses for the 32-credit hour degree will start by May 2013. For more information visit www.usfhealthonline.com

L to R: Ronnie Banks, former USF Bulls quarterback employed by Bisk Education; Nathan Bisk, CEO of Bisk Education; and Judy Genshaft, USF president.

-USF Health-

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician’s Group. The University of South Florida is a global research university ranked 50^th in the nation by the National Science Foundation for both federal and total research expenditures among all U.S. universities.

-Bisk Education, Inc. –

Founded in 1971 by Nathan Bisk, Bisk Education is the world’s leading provider of professional education online. The University Alliance (UA), a division of Bisk, facilitates the promotion and online delivery of associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as professional certificate programs from the nation’s leading traditional universities and institutions. Powered by UA’s technology and support services, our university partners have surpassed 450,000 online enrollments – making UA the largest facilitator of e-learning in the country. University partners include Villanova University, the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Florida Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, University of Florida, New England College, University of St. Thomas – Minnesota, University of San Francisco, Jacksonville University, University of Vermont, The University of Scranton, Dominican University, and Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business. U.S. News University Directory, part of the Bisk network, provides comprehensive and unbiased information on more than 2,000 academic institutions directly from U.S. News & World Report, the most trusted source for college and university rankings since 1983.

Media contacts:
Lisa Greene, USF Health Communications,  (813) 974-4312 or lgreene@health.usf.edu
Sandy Levine,  Bisk Education/University Alliance Online, 813-621-6200, ext. 328