Specialty Palliative Care has been demonstrated to lower costs in seriously ill populations. Researchers from the University of Colorado – Denver, School of Medicine, were inspired to test whether interventions could help improve quality of life and lower health care costs. Their Apoyo con Cariño (support through caring) study set out to improve palliative Read more…
Understanding the Opioid Epidemic to Improve Pain Management According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) it is estimated that nearly 650,000 people have died from an overdose involving opioids, leading to the worst drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history. Opioids are a class of drugs that include Read more…
The Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) & The Data Mart In June 2021, Colorado passed SB21-75 and became the first state in the country to allow a nonpartisan board to review high-cost drugs and possibly set payment limits for those they determine to be unaffordable. Overseen by the Colorado Division of Read more…
Using Data to Understand Where Patients Go For Care Located in the frontier community of Gunnison, in the largest county per square mile in Colorado, is Gunnison Valley Health (GVH). Begun as a hospital in 1938, GVH has grown into a health system with the ability to provide their region Read more…
COVID-19 continues to impact life through physical, mental, and emotional hurdles. A current area of interest is Long COVID, broadly defined as, “symptoms affecting multiple organs which range from cough and shortness of breath to palpitations, chest pain, joint pain, physical limitations, fatigue, depression, headache, and insomnia which affect people Read more…
Built in the 1950’s and located between 6th Avenue and Colfax, Sun Valley is one of Denver’s roughest neighborhoods. It has primarily served as an affordable housing district, as nearly 80% of the residents live in poverty, and are some of the most likely in the city to end up Read more…
In 2019, CIVHC partnered with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and AcademyHealth to support the Health Data for Action program, which provided data sets to researchers who needed access to data for their research projects. The program was similar to a grant, where researchers could apply to receive a data Read more…
The Association Between Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) and Health Outcomes Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”, is a technique for recovering gas and oil by drilling and releasing a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals to release the gas inside a rock layer. This drilling technique has been used in Read more…
Diabetes Medication Adherence in Colorado Diabetes is a health condition affecting how your body turs food into energy, impacting 30+ million Americans and over 1 million more new cases every year. As the 7th leading cause of death in the US, diabetes can become costly, and life threatening, if not Read more…
The Role of Health Insurance in Access to New Medical Technologies: A Case Study of BRCA Genetic Testing for Breast Cancer Patients While working on her master’s thesis, Colorado student Emily Hammad, encountered a female patient recently diagnosed with breast cancer and struggling to plan for the future. The patient Read more…