the researchers will also provide ongoing clinical education and support to primary care providers who may not feel expert in treating what others may call specialty conditions .
“ The research is especially crucial since people with substance use or psychiatric disorders die , on average , 10 to 25 years earlier than those without them and mostly from chronic conditions that are diagnosed and treated in primary care settings ,” Altice said .
Working alongside the West Virginia Primary Care Association and the West Virginia Practice-Based Research Network , the researchers will collect data to quantify the project ’ s impact . They ’ ll consider , for example , rates of diagnoses of HIV , hepatitis B and C , and endocarditis , and they ’ ll determine whether the 20 participating health centers identify these conditions in patients more often than their non-participant counterparts do .
The researchers will also characterize the obstacles they encounter as they roll out the program and how they overcome them .
They hope that what they learn may influence primary care not only in West Virginia but in other communities aiming to address the co-occurrence of substance use disorders with HIV or hepatitis C .
Although West Virginia has among the highest rates of opioid-involved overdose deaths in the United States , fatal overdoses aren ’ t confined to the state . In 2019 alone , 70,630 Americans died from overdoses . That ’ s the equivalent of nearly 200 daily deaths .
“ If a jet filled with 200 people crashed every day , don ’ t you think that there would be more urgency in addressing this problem ?” Madden asked .
And according to the World Health Organization , half a million deaths worldwide are attributable to drug use . That ’ s the same as seven Boeing 737 crashes each day .
“ In the resource-rich world — the United States , Europe , Canada , Australia and New Zealand — almost all hepatitis C exists as a function of injection drug use because it ’ s very contagious in blood ,” Feinberg said .
Although hepatitis C can cause serious complications in people who don ’ t receive treatment for it , oral medication — taken once daily , for 8 to 12 weeks — can cure it .
And while there ’ s no cure yet for HIV , it ’ s become an extremely manageable condition . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that a person who is diagnosed with HIV at age 20 and who takes current HIV medication will live , on average , to be 71 years old . Without that medication , the average lifespan shrinks to 32 years . ( The average person without HIV lives to be 79 .)
There ’ s even a once-daily pill that can prevent someone from contracting HIV if they ’ re at risk for it .
“ One pill , once a day — very few side effects ,” Feinberg said . “ This is in the wheelhouse of a primary care provider .”
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health , under Award Number 1R01DA054703-01 , and the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute . WVCTSI is funded by an IDeA Clinical and Translational grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences ( U54GM104942 ) to support the mission of building clinical and translational research infrastructure and capacity to impact health disparities in West Virginia . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH or WVCTSI .
WV STEPS Features Diverse Manikin , Standardized Patients for Students to Gain Experience Working with Diverse Populations
The West Virginia University David and Jo Ann Shaw Center for Simulation Training and Education for Patient Safety ( STEPS ) now features more diverse manikin and standardized patients to better prepare Health Sciences students to work with patients from different backgrounds .
STEPS is a state-of-the-art center for experiential learning , simulation and patient safety . By providing a safe learning environment with fully responsive technology , students are safer and smarter before encountering patients in everyday and critical care situations . STEPS provides educational support for all the schools within the Health Sciences Center .
STEPS now has three manikins with darker skin tones — an infant , a child and an adult that STEPS Center received this year . Faculty members have written cases for the manikins to develop more diverse scenarios and backgrounds .
“ It is important to have these diverse manikins to work on because we are trying to create a welcoming and safe environment for all of our learners ,” said Daniel Summers , director of STEPS . “ Our goal is to make sure we are sensitive to the needs of all . Everything we do here is about patient safety ; if we can portray that here , then the hope is that it will carry over into the students ’ clinical setting .”
STEPS is also working to recruit more diverse standardized patients . A standardized patient is a real person role-playing a realistic clinical situation to help healthcare students learn and / or evaluate clinical skills . They are people from the community who have indicated an interest and are accepted based on their communication skills .
“ It is important for the students to experience a diverse patient pool in order to develop cultural competence in a safe environment ,” said Lee Ann Miller , assistant director of education at STEPS . “ Adding individuals from varying cultural backgrounds will provide better perspective on unique healthcare related experiences and improved outcomes for future patients .”
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