Thursday, April 26, 2018

CROW NOTES 4/26/18


CROW 4/26/18
Attendees: Marianne, Levi, Kairn, Dr. Littenberg, Koela, Justine
Presenter:  Kairn
·        Research on process markers is okay in the eyes of Dr. Littenberg and CTS but DON’T Forget about the outcomes.
o   Medication can have unintended effects, good or bad.
§  Statins -> improve longevity in patients with low cholesterol through unintended and not fully understood anti-inflammatory pathway.
§  Drug for PVC -> increased in death rates. Not fully studied before being approved.
·         DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE OUTCOMES!!!
·         Process marker: Communication
·         Why solve communication problem -> stop bad things from happening?
·         What are the possible adverse outcomes
o   Mortality
o   Morbidity
§  Function
§  Symptoms
o   Costs
o   Non-adherence
o   Mis-adventures or medical errors
o   Patient engagement or lack thereof

FINER Research question:

Solving communication problems between providers and patients who are hard of hearing: Do personal amplifiers help improve patient/provider communication and patient comprehension?

UVMMC
·         Settlement with deaf patient that didn’t have the proper services at UVMMC
·         Tasked with improving services for patient communication among hearing impaired patients  
o   Roll out of personal amplifiers
o   Kairn has the option to help. Should she?
§  Clean slate but research + make hospital happy == not likely.  
American speech and hearing grant $10k
·         Should she apply? Due in a week.
o   Probably not but maybe in the near future.



Next workshop meetings: Thursdays @ 11 AM. Given Courtyard South Level 4
·        May 3: Hendrika Maltby, Qualitative methods

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Notes from CROW 4/19



  CROW 4/19/18 Notes

    Start Up:  Davis FD. Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology. MIS Quarterly. 1989; 13(3):319-40

·         Seminal paper in technology acceptance model (TAM)
  o     Purpose: Create a valid measurement for acceptance of computers
  o   Perceived usefulness/ease of use associated with anticipated usage?   
   ·         Cited over 38,000 times.
   ·         Definitions
   ·         Usefulness
  o   Does the technology benefit your work?
   ·         Ease of use 
  o   “…free of effort”
·          Validity
  o   Does the instrument reflect the construct
§  In this case the constructs are usefulness & ease of use
   ·          Discussion/review on precision, accuracy, validity: visualized on the white board
  o   Measures can be
§  Not precise or accurate (valid)
§  Precise but not accurate (or valid)
§  Valid but suffering from lack of precision (still accurate)
·         Perhaps increase sample size or improve measurement
§  Valid with good precision and accuracy
   ·         Discussion on types of validity with the group
  o   Face validity
§  The degree to which a procedure appears effective in …
·         Astrology: Not so much.
  o   Construct validity
§  Does the instrument what we want it to measure?
·         Does BMI measure obesity? Decently.
  o   Convergent validity
§  Measuring same thing with different devices/tools and you get the same/more precise answer
·         Measure height with yardstick, then laser then … All going to converge to my height
·         If they don’t converge then at least one device/tool is wrong
  o   Divergent validity
§  Tests that the measurements that are not supposed to be related are actually unrelated.
  o   Factorial validity
§  Factor analysis on all items/questions
·         A question asked 5 different ways will all be grouped by factor analysis
·         A way to shorten survey
o   Gain: time, less annoying, increase response/decrease missingness
o   Lose: precision within subject (power in study)
  o          Criterion validity
§  Gold standard, benchmark
§  But what if there is no criterion validity? What if there is no prior measurement of usefulness and ease of use of technology?
·         You create it! Become the gold standard
·         The meter
·         Temperature
·         PIP example-> how well do primary care offices get behavioral health delivered?
·         Kairn auditory -> auditory processing disorder.
o   No agreed upon definition -> no construct or criterion validity.

                Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursdays @ 11AM at Given Courtyard South Level 4.
                April 26: Kairn Kelley
     May 3: Hendrika Maltby, Qualitative methods 

Friday, April 13, 2018

Emily Tarleton's Magnesium Trial featured on UVM Med Center Blog

The UVM Med Center recently featured the work of Emily Tarleton, PhD. Magnesium: UVM Study Shows It’s a Safe, Effective, Low-Cost Treatment for Depression includes an interview with Emily and a discussion of her thesis work.

Congrats, Emily!

-Ben Littenberg