PCMH recognizes primary care practices with a team-based health care delivery model that provide comprehensive care to patients and are dedicated to continuous quality improvement for health outcomes. Designated practices put patients at the forefront and create strong relationships between patients and their clinical care teams.

UofL Physicians – General Pediatrics has clinics at the Novak Center for Children’s Health in downtown, Sam Swope Kosair Charities Centre on Eastern Parkway and on Stonestreet Road in southwest Louisville.

“Following the PCMH model provides a very structured way to deliver coordinated care,” said Amanda Cagle, RN, practice manager for Downtown and Stonestreet sites. “It provides a high level of standardization throughout all three clinics, which follow the same policies and procedures. We are continuously monitoring different aspects of patient care in order to improve the care we deliver to our patients.”

Research shows that PCMHs improve quality, the patient experience and staff satisfaction while reducing health care costs, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

A requirement of earning PCMH designation is using care coordination, the intentional organization of patient care among providers working with a particular patient to provide optimum health services. Through care coordination, providers share important clinical information, work together to keep patients and their families informed and ensure that effective referrals take place.

“We’ve changed policies, procedures and day-to-day functioning to accommodate patients in every way we can,” said Melissa Hancock, MD, UofL division director of general pediatrics. “All of our providers and staff are invested in our patients’ primary care. This is where they’re going to get their comprehensive health care needs met.”

In mice models with genetic mutations similar to humans with night blindness, scientists used adeno-associated viruses to reintroduce the protein into cells in the retina, the specialized tissue at the back of the eye that detects light and triggers impulses through the optic nerve to the brain, where a visual image is formed.

The research, led by scientists at the University of Louisville with collaborators from the Medical College of Wisconsin, recently was published by . Grants from the National Institutes of Health, Research to Prevent Blindness and the Foundation Fighting Blindness funded the research.

“Individual genes that everybody expresses are critical to making sure vision works correctly, and in their absence, some people will have night blindness,” said Ron Gregg, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the UofL School of Medicine. “Our research shows that if you replace the missing protein using a gene therapy approach, you can restore visual function.”

Humans are adept at seeing in low light, but genetic mutations can disrupt that function, causing total night blindness. 

Proteins located on the surface of photoreceptors, which are cells in the retina that detect light, ensure that visual signals pass from the two types of photoreceptors – cones and rods – to retinal bipolar cells. This is a crucial step in the transmission of visual information from the eyes to the brain. Genetic mutations disrupt the signal transfer between photoreceptors and retinal bipolar cells, impairing vision.

People with congenital stationary night blindness also have other vision problems, including severe myopia, involuntary eye movements and eyes that do not look in the same direction. These secondary affects are more debilitating than night blindness itself, Gregg said.

The next phase of research requires testing on a large animal model with eyes similar to humans.

Richard Blondell, MD, vice chair for addiction medicine and professor of family medicine at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will give an overview of substance use disorders and ways to treat acute and chronic pain for patients with addiction. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the basement-level auditorium of the UofL Ambulatory Care Building, 550 S. Jackson St.

Blondell provides health care to patients as they withdraw and stabilize from drug and/or alcohol addiction. His research centers on clinical management strategies for groups of patients with prescription drug addiction, including pregnant women and people with chronic pain.

No stranger to Louisville, Blondell established the first addiction medicine consult service at UofL Hospital in 1998 to aid the trauma service with detox management following patient admission and referrals to addiction treatment programs at the time of discharge.

“I didn’t choose to specialize in addiction medicine so much as it chose me,” Blondell said. “I became the program director of the UofL Family Medicine Residency Program in 1989. Shortly thereafter, I sent two family medicine residents off to receive treatment of their substance use disorders.”

The Kentucky Medical Association sponsored an off-site, two-week addiction medicine training for Blondell, and over the years, he became increasingly involved in addiction medicine.

Blondell develops best practices for training the next generation of physicians on how to treat and prevent addiction. In 2013, he was named the first director of the National Center for Physician Training in Addiction Medicine, established by the American Board of Addiction Medicine Foundation (ABAMF). The addiction medicine fellowship he developed at the University of Buffalo Department of Family Medicine was among the nation’s first postgraduate addiction medicine residencies accredited by ABAMF.

Blondell completed his family medicine residency training at the UofL School of Medicine in 1981, and served on the faculty at the school from 1985 to 2003.

The daylong conference is open to all advance practice registered nurses and will take place at the Kosair Charities Clinical and Translational Research Building, 505 S. Hancock St., in Louisville from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Attendees will obtain 6 CEUs, including pharmacology hours. Lunch and free parking will be provided.

Beth Partin, DNP, APRN, the Kentucky state representative for the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, will give the keynote lecture on legislative updates. Partin practices family medicine in Columbia, Kentucky.

Other keynote sessions will focus on concussion care and Hepatitis A, B and C.

For more information and to register, visit .

Employees collected used wraps that cover sterilized surgical instruments to make sleeping bags and pillows as well as a large tote to carry them in, reusing material that normally would be tossed in the garbage.

“It’s a great way to reach out to a population that could benefit from these kits and get use out of the sterile wraps,” said Donna Hale, an assistant in surgical services at UofL Hospital. “The wraps are waterproof, so we are hoping they can be helpful to the homeless.”

A scrub tech saw a story on social media about a hospital in another state using the blue sterile wraps to make sleeping bags, and UofL Hospital staffers wanted to expand the concept to include pillows and a bag to carry the items, said Kathy Robinson, RN, clinical manager of surgical services at UofL Hospital.

The hospital employees gathered together during their free time to sew the kits, which were delivered to Wayside Christian Mission earlier in March. They plan to continue making the kits and hope to inspire other health care facilities to join the effort.

“We are always looking for ways to help people in the community and we were very excited about being able to do this,” Robinson said. “This also is a great way to address the hospital’s waste because these perfectly useful wraps would just be thrown away.”

Snyder’s talk, “Big Data and Health,” will take place at noon in room 101-102 at the Kosair Charities Clinical & Translational Research Building, 505 S. Hancock St. Snyder will focus on how information in large databases, or big data, can be used to develop improved and more individualized approaches to predicting, diagnosing and treating common diseases. 

, PhD, is an international leader in the fields of functional genomics and proteomics and is the director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University, where he is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics.

He wrote “Genomics & Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know,” a book that explores the prospects and realities of genomics and personalized medicine for consumers. He was a key participant in the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, which identified functional elements in the human genome.

Snyder’s research group was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism. Genomics is a branch of molecular biology that focuses on the structure, function, evolution and mapping of genomes in an organism’s complete set of DNA.

 has made several groundbreaking findings, including the discovery that much more of the human genome is either transcribed or contains regulatory elements than previously known, and that a high diversity of binding of transcription factors – gene products that participate in regulating what genes are active – occurs between and within species.

Snyder also has combined different advanced “omics” technologies to perform the first longitudinal Integrative Personal Omics Profile (iPOP) of an individual and used the information to assess disease risk and monitor disease states for personalized medicine. He co-founded several biotechnology companies, including Protometrix (now part of Life Technologies), Affomix (now part of Illumina), Excelix, Personalis and Q Bio.

Snyder received his PhD at the California Institute of Technology and postdoctoral training at Stanford University.

The lecture is sponsored by the  at the UofL School of Medicine. For more information, contact Janice Ellwanger at 502-852-5217 or David Samuelson at 502-852-7797.

Ryan Wetzler, director of Sleep Health Center in Louisville, will speak at 7 p.m. at Second Presbyterian Church, 3701 Old Brownsboro Road. Wetzler, who is board certified in behavioral sleep medicine and clinical health psychology, will discuss the sleep system, new insomnia treatment guidelines and a revolutionary approach to treating the condition.

He practices cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), a treatment that helps people identify and replace thoughts and behaviors that cause or exacerbate sleep problems with habits that promote good sleep.

CBT-I helps people overcome the underlying causes of sleep problems, unlike sleep medications, which are advised only for short-term use – between four to six weeks – because of adverse effects that include learning and memory problems and dependence, Wetzler said.

“CBT-I actually cures a majority of those with chronic insomnia in an average of five treatment visits and enables nearly 80 percent of those taking sleep medication to discontinue use,” Wetzler said.

About 10 to 15 percent of adults experience chronic insomnia and 80-90 percent of depression and anxiety patients have sleep difficulties.

The “Building Hope” lecture series is sponsored by the .

Beacon recipients meet high standards for patient care by collecting and using evidence-based information to improve outcomes, patient and staff satisfaction and credibility with consumers, according to .

UofL Hospital’s 5 South Unit – a 16-bed mixed acuity unit that provides comprehensive and complex care to surgical, trauma, medical and cancer patients – received the bronze level designation, which is in place for three years.

“The unit has great patient satisfaction and outcomes, great nursing engagement and our retention rate of nursing staff is high,” said Cathy Barth, RN, interim director of mixed acuity units at UofL Hospital. “The award speaks to the collaborative culture of the unit, how the nurses work together as a team and the high level of best care practices demonstrated.”

is one of only four facilities in Kentucky with a unit that currently has a Beacon designation.

For staff recruiting and retention, the award signifies a positive and supportive work environment with exceptional collaboration among colleagues and leaders, high morale and low turnover, according to AACN.

“Recipients of the Beacon Award set the standard for excellence in health care,” said Shari Kretzschmer, RN, MSN, MBA, NEA-BC, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at UofL Hospital and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. “As an academic hospital, our nursing staff and providers are not only dedicated to high-level patient care, but are enthusiastic about improving patient outcomes and patient and staff satisfaction using evidence-based practices. Receiving this award emphasizes the importance of our academic and patient-centered care mission.”

Although antibiotics are important life-saving drugs that treat bacterial infections – including strep throat and urinary tract infections – their overuse can lead to drug resistance, which occurs when antibiotics no longer cure infections that they should treat, said Bethany Wattles, PharmD, clinical pharmacist in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

, a statewide campaign to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use, is led by health professional researchers at the UofL Department of Pediatrics Antimicrobial Stewardship Program with collaboration and financial support from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Department of Medicaid Services. The campaign provides education and resources to Kentucky health care providers and the public.

“If we continue to overuse antibiotics, even minor infections will become untreatable. This is a serious public health threat,” Wattles said. “To combat the spread of antibiotic resistance, we must use antibiotics only when necessary.”

Antibiotics are most frequently used for upper respiratory infections, many of which are caused by viruses that antibiotics do not kill.

Examining antibiotic prescriptions for Kentucky children on Medicaid, researchers found that the rate of antibiotic use has been especially high in Eastern Kentucky. In some areas, children are receiving three-times more antibiotic prescriptions than the national average, Wattles said.

The majority of antibiotic prescribing is done in outpatient settings, which include medical offices, urgent care facilities, retail clinics and emergency departments. An estimated 30 to 50 percent of this antibiotic use is considered inappropriate, Wattles said.

When antibiotics are prescribed, it is important to take them as instructed; do not share the medicine with others or save for later use.

Kogan will discuss the effect of mental illness on Schumann’s music and perform pieces by the composer at the dinner, hosted at the Muhammad Ali Center, 144 N. Sixth St. The event starts at 6 p.m.

Kogan, clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program, has given lectures and concerts worldwide that explore the role of music in healing and the influence of psychological factors and illness on the creative output of classical composers.

Nearly 20 years ago, Kogan began investigating psychological issues of composers whose music he had played for years. He discovered that several – including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Schumann – presented signs of serious psychiatric illnesses.

The connection between creative genius and mental illness has been well documented, and modern research suggests that the incidence of psychiatric illness is greater among writers, artists and musicians compared to the general population, according to Psychiatric Times.

Schumann, Kogan’s focus at the UofL event, likely had bipolar disorder, which first manifested in a severe depressive episode. Schumann had recurring panic attacks, mood swings and spent the final years of his life in an institution after an attempted suicide. He died in 1856 at age 46.

Kogan recorded the DVD “Music and the Mind: The Life and Works of Robert Schumann” for Yamaha. He has received numerous honors, including the Concert Artists Guild Award, the Liebert Award for Applied Psychoanalysis and the Alexander Award in Psychiatry.

Kogan studied piano at the Juilliard School of Music and earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Harvard. He has a private practice of psychiatry in New York City.

The dinner benefits the UofL Depression Center, Kentuckiana’s leading resource for depression and bipolar disorder treatment, research and education. Tickets are $125 per person and can be ordered by phone at 502-588-4886 or .