Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Fall 2019 - 27

mer Research Projects
To the Trash or the Filing
Cabinet: Assessing the Barriers
Towards Proper Utilization of
the After-Visit Summary
by Benjamin Dylik, Aimee Luo, DO, Department of
Family Medicine, Reading Hospital, Reading, PA
BACKGROUND: The purposes of the after-visit summaries
(AVS) as stated by the Center for Medicare Services' Meaningful
Use are enhance the ability of patient's memory of visit, support
greater patient engagement, and improve EHR quality through
transparency. The majority of research involving AVS focuses
on investigating the quality of these summaries, however, little
research has been done in looking into the barriers impact on the
effectiveness of these summaries in patient health. In this paper, we
seek to determine whether a barrier to the meaningful use of AVS
especially a source of medical information is affected by patient's
trust in their physician.
METHODS: This prospective study will be performed in the Family
Health Care Center and other primary care offices throughout
Tower Health Medical Group. They involved the use of a brief
questionnaire that includes a Linkert-Style scale to asses patient
trust, a binary survey to asses what patients do with their AVS, and
a list of medical resources that patients use. Patients report their
level of physician trust using a standard scale and were stratified into
high-trust and low-trust groups. These groups are then correlated to
patients' attitudes and utilization of the AVS.
***This will be an ongoing project. Currently, the project is being
submitted to the RAC and then the IRB for approval, Afterwards,
the questionnaires will be distributed, and data will be collected
and analyzed for its significance.
Benjamin R. Dylik is a graduate of La Salle University and
is now in the Class of 2022 at Drexel University College of
Medicine. His community service involvement includes
work with the Health Outreach Project and tutoring for the
Boys and Girls Club of Wissahickon. While at La Salle, he was
a founding member of the campus chapter of Catholic Relief
Services.

High Fructose Corn Syrup:
Negative Health Impacts and
Programming of Disease
by Sarah Davidson
Faculty mentor: Mark G. Martens, MD, FACOG
The sweetener high fructose corn increased in usage rapidly
following its introduction to the food industry in the late 1960's
due to its commercial benefits over sucrose. A review was performed
looking at the adverse effects of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
and added sweeteners, with a particular focus on the recent research
implicating HFCS with negative health effects in offspring later
in life. As suspected, recent research has demonstrated a clear link
between the consumption of added sugars, including high fructose
corn syrup and sucrose (linked to the fructose within it) and negative
health effects, specifically diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. One
mechanism implicated in these effects is the less regulated hepatic
metabolism of fructose, compared to glucose. Fructose in natural
sources has not been linked to the same harmful effects. Maternal
fructose intake has also been strongly linked in animal studies with
the programming of hypertension, insulin resistance, and adiposity
in offspring later in life. In conclusion, the current body of evidence
demonstrates that there are clear dangers associated with the
consumption of fructose in added sugars, suggesting that everyone
should decrease their consumption and that high fructose corn syrup
should be eliminated from the diet during pregnancy. Additional
research into factors alleviating the harm caused by excess fructose
consumption is recommended.
Sarah Davidson is a graduate of the University of Virginia
and is now in the Class of 2022 of the Chicago Medical
School at Rosalind Franklin University. She has volunteered
raising funds for Operation Smile and was involved with
an organization at UVA dedicated to preventing eating
disorders.
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FALL 2019

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Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Fall 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Fall 2019
