Primary Care Innovations

 

Contact information

Laura-Mae Baldwin
Phone: (206) 685-4799
e-mail: lmb@uw.edu
Matthew Thompson
e-mail: mjt@uw.edu


About

We are engaged in numerous research activities around the design, development, testing and implementation of new technologies and innovations in primary care. This includes using mobile phones and text messaging for improving health care, exploring the use of point of care diagnostic tests that can offer ‘one stop’ care without the need for waiting for test results, testing and implementing new electronic devices to diagnose and monitor blood pressure in clinic waiting rooms or at home, and developing data sharing infrastructure to support quality improvement and research using electronic health record data. We work closely with experts from industry, UW research labs, and primary care clinics in Seattle and across the WWAMI region.


Research projects

·       mHealth: Measuring primary care patients’ use of mobile health technologies
·       Lifelog: Assessing patient and primary care provider preferences for sharing mobile health data
·       Blood pressure kiosks: Implementation of a Self-Service Blood Pressure Kiosk in a Primary Care Clinic.
·       POCKET study: evaluating the current use and implementation of point of care tests in Family Medicine clinics in the WWAMI region.
·       Novel diagnostics for infection: Developing new lateral flow assays for infections in primary care
·       Vital signs: Developing new methods to measure capillary refill time to diagnose shock in children
·       Data QUEST: Aligning de-identified electronic health record data from a subset of diverse practices in Washington and Idaho to support research and quality improvement
·       Patient Preferences for Weight Loss in Primary Care: Measures the degree to which overweight and obese patients in primary care report willingness to participate in comprehensive weight loss programs.
·       Supporting LIFE: Feasibility of an android-phone based decision support tool forhealth workers in Malawi
·       Handheld Ultrasound: Establishing priorities for training and testing of handheld ultrasound devices in Family Medicine clinics.