Research Initiatives

THINQ is a group of individuals composed of undergraduates, graduate students, physicians, and allied health care professionals. We are an intentionally diverse organization; we analyze quality of care administered within the healthcare landscape from multiple perspectives, thus giving us a valuable platform to act from. Aside from our various projects within UCLA's Department of Medicine, we come together as a team and talk about diverse topics in health care and industry that affect both patients and doctors across the globe. From THINQ Tanks to direct patient contact, we implement a variety of holistic strategies to achieve our goals reflecting healthcare improvement and innovation in quality.

Ongoing Research Projects (2022-2023)

Intersectionality and Physician-Nurse Relationships

Discharge & Care Transitions

Sepsis Patient-Family Advisory Councils (PFACs)

Long-Term COVID

Addiction Medicine

Past Projects and Topics

Surveillance and Response to Patient Decline (STAR Team implementation)

MD-RN Interactions & Interdisciplinary Team Rounding

Computational Project (Data Analysis)

Patient Feedback on MD-RN Rounding

Standardization of Attending Rounds

Standardization of Warfarin Dosages

Minority Patient Readmissions

Pain Management

Statins Analysis

Post-ERCP Pancreatitis Initiative

Medical School Diversity and Professional Perceptions

UCLA Pre-Health Guidebook

Journal Articles and Publications

Analyzing physician-nurse communication in interdisciplinary team rounding (Callista Wu, Kelly Huang, Caitlin Chen, Gurvardaan Singh Bal, Krish Ajmani, Erin P. Dowling, MD, Wendy Simon, MD, Antonio Pessegueiro, MD, 2020)

Inspiring the Future of Medicine: The Healthcare Improvement & iNnovation in Quality (THINQ) Collaborative at UCLA Health (Aram A. Namavar et. al., 2018)

Abstracts and Presentations

Exploring Physician-Nurse Relations Through the Lens of Intersectionality: Bianca Nguyen, Dylan Mai, Manny Venegas, Pearl Omo-Sowho, Lauren Han, Aishwarya Natarajan, Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN (Department of Medicine Research Day, UCLA, October 2022; poster)
Behaviors Associated with Increased Physician and Nurse Communication During Bedside Interdisciplinary Rounds: Kelly X. Huang, Caitlin K. Chen, Antonio M. Pessegueiro, MD, Anna Dermenchyan, RN, MSN, CCRN-K, Aishwarya Natarajan, BS, Sitaram S. Vangala, MS, Erin Dowling, MD, Wendy M. Simon, MD (Department of Medicine Research Day, UCLA, October 2022; poster)
Establishment of a Sepsis Patient and Family Advisory Council at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center: Abhinav Kareddy, Aishwarya Atmakuri, Brent Arakaki, Summer Gupta, Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN, Russell Kerbel, MD (Department of Medicine Research Day, UCLA, October 2022; poster)
A Comparison of Observed and Perceived Assessments of Interdisciplinary Team Rounding: Abhinav Kareddy, Manuel Venegas, Dylan Mai, Bianca Nguyen, Pearl Omo-sowho, Damola Thomas, Lauren Han, Aishwarya Natarajan (National Collegiate Research Conference, Harvard University, January 2021; poster)
Impact of the Call Cycle on RN-MD Communication: Dhwani Krishnan, Aishwarya Atmakuri, Brittney Le, Gabriel Salazar, Sidhant Umbrajkar, Aishwarya Natarajan (National Collegiate Research Conference, Harvard University, January 2021; poster)
Efficacy of MD-RN Communication in Interdisciplinary Team Rounds: Chidinma Ikonte, Neha Divi, Monica Gonzalez, Kevin Chen (National Collegiate Research Conference, Harvard University, January 2021; poster)
Efficacy of MD-RN Communication in Interdisciplinary Team Rounds: Chidinma Ikonte, Sidhant Umbrajkar, Seerat Chawla, Nikoo Dalili, Dorothy Nguyen (Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference, October 23 – 24, 2020)
Efficacy of MD-RN Communication During Interdisciplinary Team Rounds: Brandon Goenawan, Peter Lee, Aneri Patel, Callista Wu (Undergraduate Research Week, UCLA, April 2020)

National Collegiate Research Conference (Winter 2021)

THINQ fellows presented three different research posters at the National Collegiate Research Conference (NCRC) hosted by Harvard College, the nation's largest student-run research conference. This conference hosts over 200 student researchers from over 81 universities across the world.

A Comparison of Observed and Perceived Assessments of Interdisciplinary Team Rounding

Project Team Members: Abhinav Kareddy, Manuel Venegas, Dylan Mai, Bianca Nguyen, Pearl Omo-sowho, Damola Thomas, Lauren Han, Aishwarya Natarajan
This study analyzes responses collected from 193 physicians and nurses via a survey containing Likert-scale and anecdotal-type questions describing their attitudes toward interdisciplinary team rounding. Results showed that reasons for lack of communication with ITR were reported as nurse-blamed, physician blamed, or logical-blamed. Anecdotal responses provided additional information regarding common reasons for communication barriers, such as lack of professional input from nurses. Result showed a notable difference between the perception and actual comfortability between RN and MD to initiate conversation.
Research Poster

Impact of the Call Cycle on RN-MD Communication

Project Team Members: Dhwani Krishnan, Aishwarya Atmakuri, Brittney Le, Gabriel Salazar, Sidhant Umbrajkar, Aishwarya Natarajan
This study investigated the level of communication between physicians and nurses during morning bedside rounding in Internal Medicine wards over a 5-day call cycle, consisting of a short call, medium call, long call, intern day off, and resident day off. Our findings suggest that the level and quality of MD-RN interaction varies over the call cycle, which can result in miscommunication between team members.
Research Poster

Efficacy of MD-RN Communication in Interdisciplinary Team Rounds

Project Team Members: Chidinma Ikonte, Neha Divi, Monica Gonzalez, Kevin Chen
This study identifies associations between MD-RN communication factors and bedside ITR duration as a means of potentially determining if these factors affect quality of care. Results showed that interactional factors such as contact, communication, and involvement highly influenced bedside rounding times.
Research Poster

Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (Fall 2020)

Project Team Members: Chidinma Ikonte, Sidhant Umbrajkar, Seerat Chawla, Nikoo Dalili, Dorothy Nguyen

This presentation expands on our existing study on MD-RN communication during interdisciplinary team rounds.

This research project was presented at the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (GURC) in October 2020. This presentation was recognized at the conference for Best Research Presentation.

UCLA Undergraduate Research Week: Efficacy of MD-RN Communication During Interdisciplinary Team Rounds (Spring 2020)

Project Team Members: Brandon Goenawan, Peter Lee, Aneri Patel, Callista Wu

This research project focused on the role of communication between physicians and nurses during daily interdisciplinary team rounds (ITR) within the Department of Internal Medicine at Ronald Reagan Medical Center. Our data collection method included a survey of various metrics that THINQ research fellows audited over a span of over 830+ bedside rounds. Some of these metrics included: average duration of nurse contact, the individual who initiated contact, and reason for no contact. Our results showed discrepancies in MD-RN communication across different units within the department, and one of our most significant main findings was that 79% of non-contact cases were due to no attempt being made.

Our findings suggested that these discrepancies in MD-RN communication may result in different patient care understanding between various providers. Variations in source of contact initiations may also indicate possible underlying reasons for being less proactive in routinely partaking in ITR. Additionally, a trend of lack of contact may result in a loss in potential opportunities to discuss patient care plans and deficits in understanding the importance of ITR. For future research, studies can explore the correlation and impact of implementing standardized rounding for the care team (physicians, interns, residents, and nurses) on patient care outcomes.

Our research project was presented at UCLA's Undergraduate Research Week in April 2020.