United for the first time, the JPS Health Network Research Symposium and Quality Fair drew more than 300 visitors to their virtual presentation on June 4.
The JPS Medical Research and Academic Affairs Department took the annual Research Symposium online in 2020 during the height of the COVID crisis. Vice President and Chief Quality Officer Dr. G. Robert Stephenson said it was decided this year to add the Quality Fair into the mix and create a single, combined online event.
“There is so much synergy between what happens at the Research Symposium and Quality Fair that it makes a lot of sense to combine them,” Stephenson said. “We’d love to partner to continue to do this with Academic Affairs as long as they’ll have us.”
Going online has helped the events reach their goal of higher participation and finding a larger audience, said Melissa Acosta, Director of Clinical Research at JPS. A total of 227 research abstracts were submitted this year, the most ever. In 2019, about 100 were submitted and that number rose to 140 in 2020.
“Holding a virtual event was something that we wouldn’t have done if not for circumstances beyond our control,” Acosta said. “But it’s been more of a success than we could have imagined. Being online, it has allowed people from all over the world to participate as opposed to only the people who are physically close enough to come in person.”
Dr. Antonia Novello, the first woman and the first Hispanic person to serve as U.S. Surgeon General, was the keynote speaker at the event. Stephenson said she gave a powerful presentation about disparities in healthcare.
Dr. Tricia Elliott, Senior Vice President, Medical Research and Academic Affairs, said events like the Quality Fair and Research Symposium are important because it reminds team members that they’re not only providing top notch care on a daily basis. They’re also on the cutting edge of moving the medical field forward, finding innovative new ways of helping people back to health.
“It’s great to see all the posters,” Elliott said. “It’s important to remember that JPS is on the forefront of medicine. The people here are working every day to make improvements in the field that will be felt here, and that will be felt around the world.”
Acosta said 22 institutions were represented at the event. In addition to the host, JPS, the groups included the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, Baylor Medical Center, Cook Children’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins, Medical City Fort Worth/Weatherford, MedStar Mobile Healthcare, Methodist Dallas Medical Center, Naval Medical Center San Diego, North Texas Brain & Spine Institute, Physical Medicine Rehabilitation (PMR) Fort Worth, ProPath, Radiology Associates of North Texas, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso – Foster School of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, University of North Texas, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Texas Arlington, University of Texas Southwestern, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Award winners:
Research Symposium
Top Original Research Gallery Poster: Apoorva Deshpande, JPS Behavioral Health – “The Complexity of Defining and Classifying Suicidal Behavior”
Top Case Study Gallery Poster: Raina Saxena, UNTHSC-TCOM – “An Uncommon Cause of Shoulder Pain and Weakness 5 days post ACDF”
Top Live Posters
1st Place: Anatoli Berezovsky, JPS Family Medicine – “How well are we as a health system caring for our patients with diabetes – moving from tracking processes to measuring meaningful outcomes”
2nd Place: Kennan Gibson, UNTHSC-TCOM – “The Use of Preoperative CRP/ESR as Predictive Markers of Prosthetic Joint Infection in Primary Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty”
3rd Place (tie): Chinyere Nkwocha, JPS Pharmacy – “Understanding the Effect of Direct Acting Antiviral Therapy on Weight in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C”
3rd Place (tie): Haley Leverett, JPS Pharmacy – “Racial and Ethnic Differences in GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Response in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus”
Top Podium Presentations
1st Place: Neal Bhachawat, UNTHSC-TCOM – “Assessing Opioids and Benzodiazepines Usage in Elderly Cancer Patients Who Experience a Fall”
2nd Place: Apoorva Deshpande, JPS Behavioral Health – “Screening for Suicide Risk Works: JPS Suicide Outcomes Before and After Implementation of Universal Screening”
3rd Place (tie): Michael Chandra, UNTHSC – “Hospital Safety Net Burden Identifies Disparities in Non-Definitive Management and Survival in High Risk Localized Prostate Cancer”
3rd Place (tie): Joshua Blackwell, JPS Family Medicine – “63 Year Old Female with Bright Red Blood Per Rectum and Bilateral Leg Swelling”
Quality Fair
Top Gallery Posters:
1st Place: Teri Savage, JPS Performance Excellence – “Patient Safety Root Cause Analysis Process Redesign”
2nd Place: Alexis Wells, JPS Health Information Management – “The Complicated Conundrum of Capturing COVID-19 Cases Correctly: How Hospitals Have to Hop Through Hoops for Reimbursement Help”
3rd Place: Veer Vithalani, MedStar Mobile Healthcare – “Evaluation of MPDS Protocol 36 in Identifying Suspected EMS Patients with COVID-19”
Top Live Posters
1st Place: Devon Armstrong, JPS Outpatient Case Management – “COVID-19 Outpatient Case Management Home Monitoring Program – Stretching COVID Management Beyond the Hospital Walls”
2nd Place: Jessica Aguilar, JPS Emergency Medicine – “Data Abstraction for Sepsis Success”
3rd Place: Kathy Watts, JPS Emergency Medicine – “Inter-rater Reliability: The Benefits of Collaboration”
Top Podium Presentations
1st Place: Harrison Scofield, JPS Orthopaedics – “Implementation of a Pre-Operative Huddle at a Level 1 Trauma Center”
2nd Place: Victoria Hwang, JPS OBGYN – “Implementation of a Post Placental Intrauterine Device Insertion Program at John Peter Smith Hospital”
3rd Place: Benjamin Galichia, JPS Family Medicine – “Creating a Greener Cafeteria at JPS”