Research - September 2015 Archives

Collaborative network will join federal government and other partners in supporting large-scale health care transformation among clinician practices ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Mayo Practice Transformation Network is one of 39 health care collaborative networks selected to participate in the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, announced today by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell. Mayo Clinic will receive up to $9.7 million to provide technical assistance support to help equip clinicians in the Mayo Practice Transformation Network with tools, information and network support needed to improve quality of care, increase patients’ access to information and spend health care dollars more wisely. This initiative is a collaboration between the Mayo Clinic Office of Population Health Management (OPHM) and the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery (CSHCD). It is led by principal investigator Nilay Shah, Ph.D., health services researcher in the CSHCD, and co-principal investigator Kari Bunkers, M.D., primary care physician in the Mayo Clinic Health System and medical director of the OPHM. MEDIA CONTACTS:  Elizabeth Zimmermann Young, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

Choosing the right antidepressant can be a daunting task. With so many choices and such unpredictability in their individual effects, patients with depression often spend months or years casting about for the right medication, while clinicians are often uneasy or unwilling to offer options other than their preferred prescriptions. A new study from Mayo Clinic shows that a simple series of conversation cards can dramatically improve both the patient’s and their physician’s satisfaction with the discussion on and comfort with the choice of antidepressant. The findings appear in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. “We worked closely with patients, their families, and clinicians to fully understand what really matters to them when confronted with this situation. We wanted to transform the too-often unavailable evidence into accurate, easily accessible information to be used within the context of each person’s needs and preferences, ultimately creating what we hope to be meaningful conversations,” says Annie LeBlanc, Ph.D., first author and Mayo Clinic health science researcher. Media Contact: Bob Nellis, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7s7_li29n0&feature=youtu.be Rochester, Minn. — How is individualized medicine working? Let us count the ways. That’s just what Mayo Clinic Vice President Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., did this morning in his opening keynote at the 4th annual Individualizing Medicine Conference. The core of his talk highlighted five areas in which the knowledge and know-how from the human genome will be most impactful in patient care, not just at Mayo Clinic, but anywhere in the nation and globally. “What’s in it for you?” he asked the crowd of health providers at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, Minn. “Individualized or precision medicine offers help for your medical practice today. You can take advantage of these advances to help your patients, to better diagnose, treat or prevent illness right now.” Here is his short list of “value adds” to the practice of medicine. There are many more, but these are the most pervasive and applicable at the moment. Journalists: B-roll of the conference and sound bites with Dr. Farrugia and Dr. Stewart are available in the downloads. Media Contact: Bob Nellis, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7IQPO3wqs0&feature=youtu.be Journalists: Broadcast quality sound bites with Dr. Stewart are available in the downloads. Click here for the transcript. The National Institutes of Health ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a protein marker whose frequency may predict patient response to PD-1 blockade immunotherapy for melanoma. An abstract of their findings was presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference in New York City. “The discovery of biomarkers of sensitivity are vital not only for informing clinical decisions, but also to help identify which patients with melanoma, and possibly other malignancies, who are most likely to benefit from PD-1 blockade," says Roxana Dronca, M.D., a hematologist at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the abstract. “This will allow us to expose fewer patients to inadequate treatments, and their associated toxicities and costs.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ava8Q6n_Y8o Journalists:  Sound bites with Dr. Dronca are available in the downloads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFc1B91j9WY   JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have been awarded a $13.3 million, five-year federal grant to test a vaccine designed to prevent the recurrence of triple-negative breast cancer, a subset of breast cancer for which there are no targeted therapies. The clinical trial, which will enroll 280 patients at multiple clinical sites, is expected to begin early in 2016. The grant, the Breakthrough Award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Breast Cancer Research Program, will fund a national, phase II clinical trial testing the ability of a folate receptor alpha vaccine to prevent recurrence of this aggressive cancer following initial treatment. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Knutson are available in the downloads. MEDIA CONTACT: Kevin Punsky, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZED_pRUEvEI&feature=youtu.be JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus was the nation’s second largest recruiting site, and largest in the Southeast, to participate in a landmark study ...