HHRI Media Coverage – 2019
2019
October
Dr. Hilden brings in special guest Dr. Anne Murray to talk the serious and important topic of dementia.
Listen to the Healthy Matters podcast.
September
Abbott announced that a high-sensitivity troponin I blood test used to detect MI has received FDA clearance. The blood test (Architect Stat) can detect very low levels of troponin, which allows physicians to assess patients within 2 to 4 hours of admission, according to a press release from the company. Results of the test are not affected by biotin interference, which is important as biotin supplements grow in popularity, according to the release. “The addition of Abbott’s high-sensitivity troponin I assay to the laboratory’s diagnostic testing menu is a great step forward to help laboratory scientists and clinicians better evaluate patients suspected of having a heart attack,” Fred. S. Apple, PhD, DABCC, co-director of the Clinical and Forensic Toxicology Laboratory at Hennepin Healthcare/Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis and professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said in the release.
Read the Healio story.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared Abbott’s blood test to help aid in the diagnosis of heart attacks for men and women hours earlier than standard tests and marks significant progress for detecting heart attacks in women. Fred Apple, co-director of Clinical and Forensic Toxicology Laboratory at Hennepin Healthcare/Hennepin County Medical Center, said the addition of Abbott's high sensitivity troponin-I assay to the laboratory's diagnostic testing menu is a “great step forward to help laboratory scientists and clinicians better evaluate patients suspected of having a heart attack.”
Read the story on BioSpace.
Abbott announced today that new research, published in the journal Circulation, found its algorithm could help doctors in hospital emergency rooms more accurately determine if someone is having a heart attack or not, so that they can receive faster treatments or be safely discharged."With machine learning technology, you can go from a one-size-fits-all approach for diagnosing heart attacks to an individualized and more precise risk assessment that looks at how all the variables interact at that moment in time," said Fred Apple, Ph.D., Hennepin HealthCare/ Hennepin County Medical Center, professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota, and one of the study authors. "This could give doctors in the ER more personalized, timely and accurate information to determine if their patient is having a heart attack or not."
August
Opioid addiction preventive vaccine would contain fentanyl hapten removing positive reaction to the drug. The University of Montana has received a $3.3 million contract from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop an innovative vaccine targeting opioid addiction. The principal investigator on the 2-year award is Dr. Jay Evans, director of the University of Montana (UM)’s Center for Translational Medicine and a research professor in the Division of Biological Sciences. Other investigators on the award are Drs. David Burkhart, Kendal Ryter and Helene Bazin-Lee from UM in Missoula, Marco Pravetoni from the University of Minnesota, and Paul Pentel and Mark LeSage from Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute.
Read the Precision Vaccinations story.
July
Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute investigator Dr. Fred Apple, PhD, DABCC, discusses his article "Myocardial Infarction Risk Stratification With a Single Measurement of High-Sensitivity Troponin I" recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Read the interview on MedicalResearch.com
Gov. Tim Walz signed into law a response to Minnesota’s opioid crisis that he says holds Big Pharma accountable. In 2017, there were more than 2,000 visits to Minnesota emergency rooms for opioid-involved overdoses, with 422 Minnesotans losing their lives. Since 2010, the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths has steadily increased each year. The new law, championed in the Minnesota House by Rep. Liz Olson (DFL – Duluth), becomes effective immediately. The bill includes funding for Hennepin Healthcare’s “Project ECHO,” grants for tribal nations and urban Native-American communities, and additional staff for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s drug labs and trafficking enforcement efforts. It also includes reforms to drug prescribing practices, improves efforts to safely remove excess drug supplies, and increases supplies of Naloxone (Narcan) for first responders.
Read the story on Insight News.
June
A new program is underway in Hennepin County to help inmates struggling with addiction. They are now screened for opioid use disorder when they arrive at the Adult Detention Center. It started in January to connect inmates with medication assisted treatment. “The folks that we’re seeing have been struggling with their substance use disorder for at least a year, but often 10, 15 or 20 years,” said Dr. Tyler Winkelman.
At Hennepin Healthcare, doctors read plenty of studies, but one that claims taking certain pills may increase your risk of dementia by as much as 50%, certainly stands out. Dr. Anne Murray works in geriatrics and conducts research of her own. She says the medical community has long suspected anticholinergic drugs, which are used to treat things like depression, Parkinson’s, incontinence, allergies and other conditions, may cause dementia later in life.
Mark Linzer, MD, Principal Investigator of the Healthy Work Place study, was interviewed on JNO Live about the study that shows trust is an important attribute to clinician satisfaction; identifies characteristics associated with gender, organizational climate. The live JAMA Network Open broadcast aired on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
May
The World Health Organization this week recognized burnout as an official medical diagnosis. "I think it's a really important thing that they've done this. I think that provides a foothold to begin the conversation about the workplace. What we can do to help," said Dr. Mark Linzer at Hennepin Healthcare. "Raises an important question. Now that we have a diagnosis, what can we do?"
March
Drug seizures for Minnesota's Violent Crime Enforcement Teams increased in several major drug categories in 2018. The increase in drug seizures corresponds with studies that have found a rise in drug use among Minnesotans and nationally. Dr. Tyler Winkelman of Hennepin Healthcare says research has shown that hospitalizations related to methamphetamine increased 270 percent nationally between 2008 and 2015.
Seizures of methamphetamine in Minnesota surged at an alarming level last year, as have confiscations of other illicit drugs, state public safety officials said, and a major bust already this year suggests the influx is not letting up. Dr. Tyler Winkelman, a physician and researcher at Hennepin Healthcare, said the “unintended consequences of getting rid of local meth labs with the crackdown on Sudafed” — the over-the-counter product that provides a key ingredient for making meth — is “that opened up the meth cartels from Mexico.”
People paralyzed from a serious injury are being given an opportunity many thought they'd lost for good. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Hennepin Healthcare are helping them regain voluntary movement and so much more.
What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Kidney transplantation confers profound survival, quality of life, and cost benefits over dialysis for the treatment of end-stage kidney disease. Kidney transplant recipients under 65 years of age qualify for Medicare coverage following transplantation, but coverage ends after three years for patients who are not disabled.
Read the full interview with Allyson Hart MD MS, Department of Medicine, Hennepin Healthcare, University of Minnesota on MedicalResearch.com
Drug seizures for Minnesota’s Violent Crime Enforcement Teams (VCET) increased in several major drug categories in 2018, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. The increase in drug seizures corresponds with studies that have found a rise in drug use among Minnesotans and nationally. According to research conducted by Dr. Tyler Winkelman of Hennepin Healthcare, hospitalizations related to methamphetamine increased nationally by 270 percent from 2008-2015, faster that any other form of substance abuse. The number of women using methamphetamine during pregnancy has increased significantly since 2008, particularly in rural areas.
February
Researchers from the University of Minnesota and Hennepin County hope to use a recent study regarding opioid-related deaths after incarceration to address the opioid epidemic. About one-third of opioid-related deaths in Hennepin County occurred within one year of inmates leaving jail, according to a report released by the county last month. Now, public health care officials and University researchers hope to offer care to incarcerated individuals with opioid use disorder based on the report’s recommendations. "Our workgroup made recommendations to begin treating people with opioid use disorders in county correctional facilities," said Tyler Winkelman, an author of the report, clinician-investigator with Hennepin Healthcare and assistant professor of medicine at the University. The treatment would include providing medications to incarcerated individuals with opioid use disorder and connecting them to community providers upon release.
New research by a local team of doctors is proving to be life-changing for people paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. It’s giving hope to thousands who previously thought they would never walk again. It took the University of Minnesota and Hennepin Healthcare two years to get through all of the paperwork, including grant approvals. It’s especially unique because doctors are studying patients who have been paralyzed for multiple years.
There are more than 290,000 people estimated to be living in the United States with a spinal cord injury. Previously, it has been shown that it is possible to restore some function to young and healthy patients within a few years of injury. Now, researchers show spinal cord stimulation can immediately restore some voluntary movement and autonomic functions such as cardiovascular, bowel, and bladder years after a paralyzing injury without any significant rehabilitation. "This was an opportunity to use epidural stimulation, combine my background in mathematics, collaborate with people from multiple disciplines including biomedical engineering and set up a truly innovative trial," said Dr. David Darrow, a neurosurgery resident at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a lead investigator for the E-STAND Clinical trial. He is also a senior neurosurgery resident at Hennepin Healthcare and University of Minnesota Medical Center.
January
There are more than 290,000 people estimated to be living in the United States with a spinal cord injury. Previously, it has been shown that it is possible to restore some function to young and healthy patients within a few years of injury. Now, researchers show spinal cord stimulation can immediately restore some voluntary movement and autonomic functions such as cardiovascular, bowel, and bladder years after a paralyzing injury without any significant rehabilitation. "This was an opportunity to use epidural stimulation, combine my background in mathematics, collaborate with people from multiple disciplines including biomedical engineering and set up a truly innovative trial," said Dr. David Darrow, a neurosurgery resident at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a lead investigator for the E-STAND Clinical trial. He is also a senior neurosurgery resident at Hennepin Healthcare and University of Minnesota Medical Center. "We wanted to push the envelope for patients. Once we determined it worked, we moved on to knocking down other barriers to translation to patient care."
Seasonal flu and other respiratory infections may be especially dangerous for kidney failure patients, researchers say. A new study found that influenza-like illnesses likely contribute to more than 1,000 deaths among kidney failure patients in the United States each year. These illnesses include potentially serious respiratory tract infections caused by flu and other viruses. For the study, David Gilbertson, co-director of the Chronic Disease Research Group at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute in Minneapolis, and his colleagues reviewed 14 years of federal data.
Read the story in U.S. News & World Report
Community activity for influenza-like illness (ILI) is associated with seasonal variation in all-cause mortality among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), according to a study published online January 24 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. David T. Gilbertson, PhD, from the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute in Minneapolis, and colleagues calculated quarterly relative mortality compared with average third-quarter (summer) death counts after addressing overall increasing trends in death due to the growing prevalent ESRD population. Linear regression models were used to assess the correlation between ILI data and mortality.
In patients with kidney failure, influenza-like illness (ILI) likely contributes to more than 1,000 deaths per year. The finding, which comes from a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), points to the importance of protection against, surveillance of, and, where possible, treatment of such infections in patients with kidney dysfunction.
The extent to which ILI contributes to mortality in patients with ESRD is unclear. To investigate, David Gilbertson, Ph.D. (Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute and the University of Minnesota) and his colleagues analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Outpatient ILI Surveillance Network and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ESRD database from 2000-2013.
Flu-like illness contributed substantially to mortality for people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), an analysis spanning 14 years of U.S. data indicated. During influenza season -- the 6 months from October to March -- excess deaths averaged more than 1,000 annually among the at-risk ESRD population, according to David Gilbertson, PhD, of the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute and the University of Minnesota, and colleagues, pointing to influenza-like illness (ILI) as the likely reason.