Diana Burgess, PhD is a social psychologist and Core Investigator of Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research and Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Burgess’ areas of research include public health communication about chronic pain and nonpharmacological treatments for chronic pain, with a focus on pain and pain care from the perspectives of women and African Americans. Currently the principle investigator of the PMC LAMP Trial (LINK to TRIAL), Burgess sat down with the PMC to talk about her research.
The PMC is committed to addressing such barriers to high quality pain care for African Americans and other racial and ethnic minority groups as we conduct and disseminate our research.
This 2020 review aims to help inform the selection of appropriate therapies by examining the long-term effectiveness of noninvasive, nonpharmacological approaches for improving functionality and the experience of chronic pain.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects all of us and people with pain may feel particularly anxious. Managing physical and emotional aspects of pain is difficult under normal circumstances, and veterans and military service members and their families may feel particularly vulnerable due to the many new physical and emotional challenges brought on, or heightened, by the pandemic.
This trial seeks to identify evidence of meaningful outcomes of Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain (BCBT-CP) interventions within the context of primary care settings, such as decreased opioid medication, fewer emergency room visits for pain care, and greater satisfaction with treatment plans.
Co-Principal Investigators:
CAPT Jeffrey Goodie, PhD; Don McGeary, PhD
Karen Seal, MD, MPH, explains integrative and integrated healthcare, as well as the VA’s Whole Health model, its components, and its benefits. Dr. Seal also shares what the model does for patient care and pain management, as well as discusses using mind-body approaches to meet the unique, multi-dimensional needs of veterans with chronic pain.
Our PMC editor sat down with Dr. Seal to talk about alternative approaches to pain management, integrative medicine, the VA’s Whole Health model for patient care, and working with the veteran population.
The LAMP project (Learning to Apply Mindfulness to Pain) is studying two approaches for delivering nonpharmacological treatment for chronic pain—in this case, Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) that incorporate mobile application technology—that will be able to reach large numbers of Veterans.
Principal Investigator:
Diana Burgess, PhD
The goals of the EHR Work Group are to optimize use of existing EHR data, support integration of patient reported data, and to create new data from unstructured text in EHRs using innovative ML and NLP tools.
The overall goal of this project is to conduct a pragmatic trial to examine the real world effectiveness of an IVR-based form of CBT-CP called Co-operative Pain Education and Self-management (COPES) versus in-person CBT-CP provided by clinicians previously trained through VHA’s evidence based psychotherapy program.
Co-Principal Investigators:
Alicia Heapy, PhD and Diana Higgins, PhD
