Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine Story Archives

Marshall Health Expands Community Health Worker Program

A new investment in community health workers could help West Virginians with chronic diseases better manage their conditions through the community health worker model.

Marshall Health received a $750,000 grant from Aetna Better Health of West Virginia, which will be used to integrate community health workers at 10 new sites to support patients with chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer and metabolic syndrome.

“The Marshall model is unique to Marshall, because it is a medical model. And so the community health worker becomes a member of the chronic care management team,” Deb Koester, an assistant professor and director of the Division of Community Health at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, said. “Their purpose is to really support the providers plan of care and serve as a linkage between clinical community linkage. So, when they are doing weekly visits in the home, they see many things we don’t see in the clinic.”

Community health workers work closely with local health care providers, regularly follow up with patients in their homes and communities to help them navigate clinical services and facilitate linkages to other non-clinical, community-based services.

This model has shown improved health outcomes in the more than 25 counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky where it has been used because community health workers help remove barriers to transportation, food instability, financial instability and other barriers to health.

“This will directly add it’s really a workforce development opportunity to expand the number and sites that have community health workers that can be serving,” Koester said. “It really reinforces the physician’s plan of care. And so it reduces hospitalizations, it reduces the emergency department visits, it addresses those social determinants of health that can be barriers to following that plan of care. And it helps them follow the physician’s plan.”

The Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Health initiated the community health worker model nearly a decade ago with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.

Marshall Creates ‘Long COVID’ Clinic

Marshall Health and Cabell Huntington Hospital have set up a new clinic in Huntington to support patients who experience COVID-19 symptoms weeks and months later. The condition is often referred to as “long COVID.”

Marshall Health and Cabell Huntington Hospital (CHH) have set up a new clinic in Huntington to support patients who experience COVID-19 symptoms weeks and months later. The condition is often referred to as “long COVID.”

Marshall Health Pulmonologists Imran T. Khawaja, M.D., and Mohammed AlJasmi, M.D., are leading a multidisciplinary team of physical therapists, mental health professionals, neurologists and social workers to provide ongoing care and treatment for patients 18 or older who are experiencing long-term effects from a COVID-19 infection.

Patients with long COVID may experience persistent COVID-19 related symptoms for at least three months — or more than 30 days after hospitalization with COVID-19. As many as 25 percent of patients may suffer from one or more symptoms that persist nine months or longer after COVID-19, according to CDC datapublished in May.

Long COVID symptoms vary from patient to patient but may include shortness of breath, persistent pneumonia/fibrosis, fatigue, fever, gastrointestinal disorders, difficulty thinking or concentrating, difficulty sleeping, heart palpitations and/or joint pain.

“We are still learning about the effects of ‘long COVID,’ since it is a new syndrome,” said Khawaja, professor and chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. “By bringing various specialists together, our clinicians work collaboratively to identify health problems in the early recovery phase and actively treat symptoms to facilitate improvement in function and reduce symptoms.”

Patients will be seen at the CHH Center for Lung Health, located at 1305 Elm Street in Huntington.

A referral from a primary care provider, physical therapist or pulmonary rehabilitation center is required for patients to be seen at the post-COVID clinic.

For more information, please contact the CHH Center for Lung Health at 304-399-2881 or visitmarshallhealth.org/longCOVID.

MU Medical School Seeks Actors To Portray Patients

Patient actors will be paid $15 an hour. They will be coached to accurately portray and consistently recreate the history, emotional and physical findings of an actual patient in a clinical setting.

Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine needs paid participants to act like real patients.

Patient actors will be paid $15 an hour. They will be coached to accurately portray and consistently recreate the history, emotional and physical findings of an actual patient in a clinical setting.

The patient actors will work alongside instructors and students in the Physician Assistant Program and the Marshall University School of Pharmacy.

Clinical skills coordinator Crystal Brooks said the work covers many medical facets.

“We give them a script, we provide training, and they participate as actors in our clinical space,” Brooks said. ”Sometimes from an hour to six hours, a couple of times a week. They will portray a patient in a certain case that we need to teach our learners.”

Brooks said patient actors should have no bias toward health care.

“We need patients that are reliable, punctual and committed to the education of professionals in the medical field,” Brooks said. “Somebody who can communicate well and has good interpersonal skills, and they must be eligible to work in the United States.”

All ages, sexes, races and ethnicities are needed.

Brooks said the patient actors program has been in effect for about two decades now at Marshall’s School of Medicine. She said it is regularly completed at West Virginia University in Charleston as well.

A standardized patient program open house and orientation is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 25, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Erma Ora Byrd Clinical Center, Suite 1037, located at 1249 15th Street in Huntington.

The program runs all year and Brooks said you can apply at any time.

“We take into account their availability. If they’re only available on Monday afternoons, we contact them when we have an event, or an exam that is specifically on Monday afternoon,” Brooks said. “If they tell us that they’re only available from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., we can work with that schedule as well. It’s a very flexible opportunity for somebody who has another job that is interested in continuing their acting skills, or someone who is just interested in assisting in the development of medical professionals.”

For additional information, contact Crystal Brooks at brooksc@marshall.edu or 304-691-1843. For an online application visit: https://www.cognitoforms.com/MarshallHealth2/StandardizedPatientDemographicForm.

Marshall Med School Dedicates Surgery Simulation Laboratory

Surgical residents at Marshall University have a new tool in a simulation laboratory just unveiled.

Marshall said in a news release the lab is intended to provide learning opportunities for residents and enhance patient outcome.

School of Medicine Dean Joseph I. Shapiro says the lab gives residents the ability to experience various surgical situations.

The lab was dedicated to Department Chair David Denning, who has served the medical school for 25 years. He said in the release that the lab gives the residents a chance to perfect their skills before they interact with patients.

The release said the lab represents a nearly $200,000 investment.

Marshall U. Expands Neuroscience Program

The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine has expanded its neuroscience program.

The university is creating separate departments of neurosurgery and neurology.

Joseph I. Shapiro, dean of the school of medicine, says Anthony Alberico will become chairman of the department of neurosurgery.

Alberico received his medical degree from the Temple University School of Medicine and completed residency training at the Medical College of Virginia.

He is experienced in the management of spinal disorders and in developing advances in spine care. Alberico is board-certified in neurosurgery and joined Marshall in 2007.