Internal Medicine

THINQ Collaborative

The Healthcare Improvement and Innovation in Quality (THINQ) Collaborative Program for UCLA Students and Post-graduates

Background

The Healthcare Improvement and Innovation in Quality (THINQ) Collaborative was formed in May 2014 by the UCLA Department of Medicine (DoM) Quality Program.  THINQ consists of current UCLA students and recent graduates passionate about improving healthcare from an interdisciplinary perspective. Through mentorship and professional development, the program emphasizes collaboration, research, and innovation in order to foster the next generation of healthcare leaders. THINQ involves research, physician shadowing experience, speaker events from individuals in various healthcare fields, and discussions about diverse topics in the healthcare industry that affect patients and physicians. THINQ fellows work directly with inter-professional teams, including those at Ronald Reagan and Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, to solve real-world clinical problems. THINQ is currently the only undergraduate organization on the UCLA campus dedicated to quality improvement—a topic in healthcare usually introduced at the graduate-student level.

THINQ hosts 30-40 volunteers annually from diverse backgrounds, majors, and expertise, credentialed through the UCLA Health Volunteer Office.  After graduating from UCLA, most students pursue graduate or professional schools, employment in healthcare, or research positions. After completing the THINQ program, many volunteers remain strongly interested in working in the field as part of their career trajectory, with several continuing in quality improvement initiatives. When asked to describe their THINQ experience in 5 words, the most common words are fun, collaborative, educational, inspiring, and unique.

Current Programs

  • Research Initiatives
    • Scribing: 1) Explore the integration of technology and AI in current scribe programs; 2) Investigate the impact of various human scribing programs on alleviating physician burnout.
    • UCLA Bridge Clinic: Create English and Spanish user guides for patients navigating an addiction treatment/outpatient provider database.
    • Intersectionality Scoping Review: Explore the impact of social identities (i.e., sex/gender, age, race/ethnicity) on physician-nurse relations.
    • Discharge Planning and Care Transitions: Generate best practice recommendations to improve discharge planning that can lead to higher patient satisfaction, better understanding of care plans, and reduction in readmission rates.
    • Clinical Topics: Vizient Lab projects to 1) Prevent Hypoglycemic events in hospitalized patients receiving insulin; 2) Optimize INRs to not exceed 5.0 when prescribing Warfarin in the hospital; 3) Decrease inappropriate blood transfusions for patients with hemoglobin >9 if not bleeding; 4) Draw lactic acid within 12 hours of patients presenting with Severe Sepsis. 
  • THINQ Committee Presentations and Fellowship Training
    • Social Justice: Presentations on an important healthcare issue from an intersectional lens. 
    • Journal Club and THINQ Tank: Discuss literature on specific areas of concern (i.e., team communication, interdisciplinary rounds, clinician burnout, etc.) within the healthcare system to brainstorm potential solutions in groups. 
    • Leadership Development: Courses and training on professional development, such as guest speaker events, resume building, and personality quizzes. 
    • Research Boot Camp: Workshops to develop research skills pertaining to PubMed Searching, integrative reviews, and research presentations.
  • Outreach Programming
    • Blog Posts: Publications by the volunteers discussing healthcare and social justice issues. 
    • Pre-Health Guidebook: Accessible collection of all UCLA pre-health organizations and their missions to allow individuals to find activities that best fit their interests.
    • Case Competition: Annual event for UCLA undergraduates to create and present solutions to a panel of judges (made up of clinicians and researchers) on real-world healthcare issues.
  • Shadowing 
    • Rotations in inpatient medicine, geriatric units, and outpatient internal medicine resident clinic. 

Recent Presentations and Publications

Presentations

  • Exploring Physician-Nurse Relations Through the Lens of Intersectionality. Team Members: Bianca Nguyen, Dylan Mai, Manny Venegas, Pearl Omo-Sowho, Lauren Han, Aishwarya Natarajan, Anna Dermenchyan; 2022 DOM Research Day and 2023 UCLA Nursing Science and Innovation Conference. 
  • Behaviors Associated with Increased Physician and Nurse Communication During Bedside Interdisciplinary Rounds. Team members: Kelly X. Huang, Caitlin K. Chen, Antonio M. Pessegueiro, Anna Dermenchyan, Aishwarya Natarajan, Sitaram S. Vangala, Erin Dowling, Wendy M. Simon; 2022 DOM Research Day.
  • Establishment of a Sepsis Patient and Family Advisory Council at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center. Team members: Abhinav Kareddy, Aishwarya Atmakuri, Brent Arakaki, Summer Gupta, Anna Dermenchyan, Russell Kerbel; 2022 DOM Research Day. 

Publications

Program Contact

Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN, CCRN, CPHQ 
Interim Chief Quality Officer 
UCLA Department of Medicine 
[email protected] 

DoM Quality Program  
[email protected]