Physician takes a patient's blood pressure

Academic Excellence

Our faculty in General Internal Medicine Research (GIMR) develop new approaches to improving health and health care by drawing on the successes of Public Health, Epidemiology, Computer Science, Health Services Research, Engineering, the Social Sciences, and Evidence-Based Medicine.

We test these ideas in the real world of patients and clinicians, and report on what works and why. We share faculty collaborators with our Primary Care Internal Medicine division partner, as well as other health care professions and the sciences.

Research & Education

Our clinical and translational research spans the range from the bench, the bedside, and the community. We evaluate the impact of medications on the incidence of disease, technology on the incidence of prescribing errors, compassion and computers on the quality of care, the built environment on the content of health care services, and organizational strategies on the costs and outcomes of disease. We focus on the unique problems of life in rural areas.

AHEC (Area Health Education Center) is the home of the Vermont Academic Detailing Program for community physicians. Our faculty teach and mentor in the graduate programs and post-residency training in Clinical and Translational Science. We participate in teaching undergraduate and graduate students in surgery, computer science, nursing and health professions. Our faculty provide residency education in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry. For more information on the Vermont Academic Detailing Program please visit www.vtad.org.

Benjamin Littenberg, MD, Rodger Kessler, PhD, Constance van Eeghen, DrPH

Research Team Approved for $18.5 Million Award to Study Integrated Primary Care and Behavioral Health

Benjamin Littenberg, MD, Henry and Carleen Tufo Professor of Medicine and Professor of Nursing (center), Rodger Kessler, PhD, Associate Professor of Family Medicine (right) and Constance van Eeghen, DrPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine (left) have received approval for $18.5 million in funding from The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The project team also includes three patients who will serve as funded co-investigators. The team will study whether patients with both medical and behavioral problems do better when their primary care physicians work in combination with behavioral health professionals including psychologists and social workers.