Major Research Projects

• Patient Safety Demonstration Project
  Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
  The purpose of this patient safety research demonstration project is to enhance and evaluate the Wisconsin Medical Injury Reporting System (WMIRS), an efficient and innovative approach to identifying injuries to patients in hospitals throughout Wisconsin. This demonstration will include an evaluation of strategies to disseminate information on medical injuries to hospitals in Wisconsin, and at the same time, implement patient safety improvement strategies in these hospitals. WMIRS identifies medical injuries in routinely collected hospital discharge data using criteria based on specific ICD 9 diagnosis and E-codes. This is a 3-year AHRQ funded project centered at the Wisconsin Injury Research Center (IRC) of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Members of the investigative team come from several cooperating departments. The Principal Investigator, Peter M. Layde, MD, MSc, is Director, Division of Research of the Department of Family & Community Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin. The project co-director, Stephen W. Hargarten, MD, MPH, Professor and Chairman, Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, is Director of the Firearm Injury Center and Injury Research Center at MCW.
  
  
• Injury Research Center (IRC)
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently designated the Medical College of Wisconsin as the nation's 11th Injury Research Center, serving six midwestern states. Research projects sponsored by the IRC at MCW will address important injury problems and cover all phases of injury control. Specific to the Department of Family & Community Medicine is a large IRC-sponsored research project titled "Risk Factors for Medical Injury", with Peter M. Layde, MD, MSc as Principal Investigator. This case control study, the first comprehensive application of the Injury Control Model to the study of medical injuries, will lay the groundwork for more in-depth studies toward interventions to prevent medical injuries.
  The research Core of the IRC includes three members of the Department of Family and Community Medicine: director of the core, Peter M. Layde, MD, MSc, biostatistician Clare E. Guse, MS, and epidemiologist Shankuan Zhu, MD, Phd. The Research Core provides research and statistical consultation services to investigators of the IRC large and small projects, investigators of proposals for seed grants, and investigators of other injury-related projects.
  http://www.mcw.edu/irc/
  
  Contact: : mczinner@mcw.edu