Want to stay in the know? We share news stories and publications about work happening at the Center for Insights to Outcomes, the Nudge Unit, Way to Health, the Population Health Lab, the Center for Health Justice, and the Center for Precision Resource Utilization each month. Subscribe to receive the CHTI Month in Review newsletter and add us to your contact list to ensure that messages make it to your inbox.
The Population Health Lab: Multiplying impact in preventive and chronic care
The Population Health Lab at Penn Medicine partners with clinical teams to design, assess, and scale behaviorally focused interventions to advance care at the population level.
Mental health of care workers provided with a well-being platform improves more with SMS "pushes"
Depression and anxiety scores of Penn Medicine employees significantly improved with access to the mental health platform Cobalt, finds a clinical trial led by the Center for Insights to Outcomes. Greater gains were experienced by participants who received a text message intervention connecting them to information about mental health, assessments, and care offerings.
Choice of colorectal cancer tests increases screening rates
Population Health Lab researchers offered different colorectal cancer screening methods – an at-home fecal immunochemical test (FIT), a colonoscopy, or a choice of either – to patients of a community health center to learn which option led to the highest screening rates. Patients offered the choice had the highest completion rate, double that of those in the colonoscopy-only group.
Initiatives tackle extended waiting periods for medical appointments
In this news article covering the difficulty of getting doctor appointments in Philadelphia, Roy Rosin, Penn Medicine's Chief Innovation Officer, discusses CHTI work to address access issues, including a program that uses home care and telemedicine for patients recovering from breast cancer surgery and software that identifies empty rooms for patients to be seen more quickly.
Many public benefits go unclaimed by emergency care patients
Researchers led by CHTI's Austin Kilaru found that emergency department (ED) patients with public or no health insurance were often eligible for unclaimed state or federal benefits, and that many patients were interested in getting help from a hospital-based team to apply for their missing benefits. Upcoming work will test strategies to connect ED patients with such benefits.