(Press-News.org) OKLAHOMA CITY – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 7 adults in the United States will experience a substance use disorder during their lifetime. University of Oklahoma College of Medicine faculty member Brandi Fink, Ph.D., is working with primary care clinics and health care systems to identify people with an alcohol use disorder and intervene early before the problem worsens.
Fink, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, created an assessment for patients to fill out on an iPad while waiting for an appointment with their primary care provider. Called the Personal Alcohol Management System (PALMS), it provides feedback to users based on their alcohol consumption, including details about how to reduce drinking to a low-risk level. It also lets the provider know the results, with a recommendation to follow up if indicated.
In the first phase of a clinical trial, 235 patients overwhelmingly indicated their acceptance of PALMS with a score of 1.43 on a scale of 1 to 7 (one being the best). For usability, they gave PALMS a score of 87 (a score over 80 is excellent). Fink hopes PALMS brings the topic of alcohol to the forefront of patient-provider discussions.
“Studies show that primary care physicians feel unqualified to address alcohol problems, or they feel uncomfortable bringing it up when a patient is there for diabetes management, for example,” Fink said. “Time is also a barrier – it’s difficult to work the topic into a 15-minute office visit – and providers also lack access to tools and training.”
“In addition, the vast majority of people with a substance use disorder who need treatment don’t know that they have a problem and need help,” she added. “Those are the people who are already visiting primary care clinics. They just haven’t been identified yet.”
In the next phase of the trial, Fink plans to test the effectiveness of the system for reducing drinking. She also plans to integrate the assessment into a provider’s electronic health record so that patients can access it via the patient portal and fill it out in the comfort of their homes. With this approach, patients tend to be more honest about how much they’re drinking, Fink said.
“About 20% of primary care patients are drinking at hazardous or harmful levels, which means that primary care providers will have difficulty controlling their diabetes and hypertension. They’re also at higher risk for developing a variety of cancers,” she said.
In focus groups, primary care providers reported that PALMS improved their care of patients. Health care administrators said they appreciated PALMS because it helps them manage high-risk patients, which is important to health outcomes and to accrediting bodies, Fink said.
Earlier this year, Fink was selected to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bootcamps Substance Use Disorders Ventures sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The boot camp has a similar mission – to develop new ventures for addressing substance use disorders. Fink was paired with a team of professionals from across the world with expertise in areas like data solutions, machine learning, natural language processing, public health and business, and the group worked with expert coaches. Fink was one of 70 selected to attend from a pool of worldwide applicants.
Fink’s team focused on a similar project to her own research, but geared toward identifying undiagnosed substance use disorders among patients in health systems rather than patients in primary care clinics. On the final day of the program, they pitched their idea to a panel of judges, including investors, entrepreneurs and instructors, and received guidance on next steps.
“The program has been exhausting, energizing and inspiring,” Fink said. “I have made great relationships that I know will be enduring – personally and professionally. I’m energized to search for novel solutions, not only commercially, but in my clinical research and practice, too, in order to improve the health of Oklahomans.”
###
About the Project
Funding is provided by the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Center for Research Resources, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Partners include Gilberto Zamora, Ph.D., of VisionQuest Biomedical and Randall Starling, Ph.D., of the University of New Mexico Center on Alcohol, Substance Use and Addictions, UNM Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university with campuses in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. In Oklahoma City, OU Health Sciences is one of the nation’s few academic health centers with seven health profession colleges located on the same campus. OU Health Sciences serves approximately 4,000 students in more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs spanning Oklahoma City and Tulsa and is the leading research institution in Oklahoma. For more information about OU Health Sciences, visit www.ouhsc.edu.
END
Businesses invest billions in marketing automation, and many assume that Automated Lead Nurturing (ALN) is a proven driver of sales. However, a new Journal of Marketing study reveals that ALN is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The research finds that while ALN improves engagement and enhances salesperson–lead interactions, its impact on sales conversions varies significantly across industries and customer segments.
Authored by Johannes Habel (University of Houston), Nathaniel Hartmann (University of South Florida), Phillip Wiseman (Texas Tech University), Michael Ahearne (University of ...
Until the 1990s, Venezuela was home to one of the most established democracies in Latin America. Today, however, it stands as one of the region’s most firmly entrenched authoritarian regimes.
How did this shift occur, and what can other countries learn from Venezuela’s transformation?
A new paper from political scientist Laura Gamboa at the University of Notre Dame chronicles the country’s 25-year evolution, during which Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, destroyed ...
TOOELE, UTAH, USA -- Wildlife conservation is critical to sustaining the planet’s biodiversity and health. But putting together a conservation plan is a tall order. First of all, you need to determine what species you’re conserving, along with their numbers, habitat needs, threats and how they fit into a complex ecosystem.
As pollinators for native plants and food crops, bees play a pivotal role in our ecosystem, according to Utah State University ecologist Joseph Wilson. He and undergraduate researcher Anthony Hunsaker took on the herculean task of documenting Utah’s bee species using online occurrence records from the Symbiota Collection of Arthropods ...
DURHAM, N.C. -- In his home office in Durham, Duke neuroscientist Richard Mooney shows a series of images of a bird’s brain on song.
In one, what looks like a pointillist painting illustrates a young zebra finch’s myriad attempts to sound more like an adult, capable of wooing a mate. In another, squiggly lines trace the ebb and flow of chemical signals in the reward circuit of the bird’s brain.
“Their songs don’t sound like much at first,” said Mooney, who has studied birdsong for four decades.
That’s because some things take considerable practice to master. Nobody walks onto a tennis court for the first time and plays ...
If you filled out a March Madness bracket this month, you probably faced the same question with each college match-up: What gives one team an edge over another? Is it a team’s record through the regular season? Or the chemistry among its players? Maybe it’s the experience of its coaching staff or the buzz around a top scorer.
All of these factors play some role in a team’s chance to advance. But according to a new study by MIT researchers, there’s one member who consistently ...
Relations between Europe and South America – and especially with Brazil - are at a favorable moment, due to factors such as the free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, signed in December 2024 and currently being approved. However, in order to take advantage of this window of opportunity and be competitive, Brazil must continue to expand scientific and technological cooperation with European partners.
This assessment was made by the Brazilian Ambassador to Germany, Roberto Jaguaribe, ...
The Food and Drug Administration has approved more than 100 monoclonal antibodies to treat a range of diseases. Other antibodies are used by physicians to diagnose conditions or by scientists to advance research projects.
Even with significant expansion in the global market for antibodies used in clinical care and research, scientists recognize that there is still untapped potential for finding new antibodies. Many proteins group together in what are called protein complexes to carry out biological functions. The traditional method of generating antibodies by immunizing animals struggles to make antibodies related to these protein complexes.
The conventional ...
NEW ORLEANS - Ochsner Health Medical Director for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Preventive Cardiology, Carl J. “Chip” Lavie, Jr., MD, recently co-authored a groundbreaking research study featured in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Proceedings highlighting the comparative efficacy of lipid-lowering therapies for reducing cardiovascular risks and led by Maciej Banach, MD,PhD from Poland and leader of the International Lipid Expert Panel ( ILEP). Impact of Lipid-Lowering Combination Therapy With Statins ...
Scientists from around the world specializing in motor control and neuroscience will travel to the University of Rhode Island this summer as the university hosts the international XV Progress in Motor Control Conference.
The university’s Department of Physical Therapy, its George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at URI, will host the biennial meeting of the International Society of Motor Control (ISMC) June 30 to July 2. This year’s conference will be held in the Center for ...
LA JOLLA, CA—Zika virus and dengue virus are very close relatives. Both are mosquito-borne flaviviruses, and both specialize in infecting a host's dendritic cells.
But a new Nature Communications study, led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and UC San Diego shows that these two viruses have vastly different ways of making us sick.
Zika virus uses stealth. Zika virus slips into dendritic cells and blocks the dendritic cells from alerting nearby T cells to danger. It's the classic horror movie cliche—the creeper is already in the house, and ...
