Research

Mission:  To improve health through innovative research and collaboration.

Vision:  To be a nationally recognized partner in primary care research.

Values:  Patient-centered, Inclusive, Engaging, Relevant, Rigorous

The Family Medicine Research team’s areas of expertise include interventions such as shared decision making to improve disparities in patient outcomes, clinical trials with impact to address health disparities, implementation science, population health and informatics, and social determinants of health.  We also provide research and scholarship opportunities to residents, medical school students and other learners who are interested in primary care research or public health.

 Research Team

Hazel Tapp, PhD
Research Director

Dr. Tapp currently serves as Director of Research in the Department of Family Medicine at Atrium Health, at the Center for Primary Care Research. Her research interests are broadly centered in improving health disparities and increasing health equity. This includes implementing improved delivery of care for patients with chronic diseases such as sickle cell disease, HIV, hepatitis C, diabetes, and asthma. As co-director of a practice-based research network (PBRN), the Mecklenburg Area Partnership for Primary Care Research, she works on several projects designed to use community based participatory research (CBPR) and implementation research to study improved outcomes for populations with chronic disease through implementation of evidence-based interventions. As PI on a PCORI patient-centered outcomes research institute project designed to study the dissemination of shared decision making using participatory implementation strategies, Dr. Tapp worked with 4 Practice-based research networks and Medicaid across North Carolina to implement shared decision making for asthma patients across 30 practices and in the Emergency Department. Also, in partnership with community members, patients, community organizational representatives, providers, and other research team members, Dr. Tapp helped develop and actively serve as a participating member of several community advisory boards (CABs) and patient advisory board (PAB). Dr Tapp is nationally involved in primary care research leadership, serving as Chair and Board Member of the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) Program Committee. NAPCRG’s annual conference is attended by over 1200 primary care researchers from around the world and is considered the leading global General Practitioner and Family Medicine research conference. During the COVID-19 pandemic Dr Tapp is organizing a stakeholder advisory group for community outreach and recruitment on a CDC funded COVID-19 surveillance study and a qualitative study to evaluate provider perspectives on COVID-19 experiences

Lindsay E. Shade, MHS, PA-C
Clinical Trials and Quality Director

Lindsay attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received her undergraduate degree in Exercise and Sport Science with a minor in Chemistry.  In 2006 she graduated from the Duke University Physician Assistant Program with a Master of Health Sciences degree.  She has practiced in Family Medicine in Charlotte, NC ever since and enjoys cultivating relationships with her patients.  Her special interests include pediatrics and women’s health as well as preventative health care.  Lindsay is also a Clinical Associate Professor and the Director of Clinical Trials and Quality within Atrium Health’s Department Family Medicine Research Division.  Current projects focus on chronic disease management, improving participants’ outcomes, implementation, practice facilitation, and using participatory methods including shared decision making.  In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two young children, running, practicing yoga, and making jewelry.

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Thomas Ludden, PhD
Director of Population Health and Data Analytics

Thomas serves as the Director of Population Health and Data Analytics and has worked with the Department of Family Medicine for 13 years. His research interests include health outcomes research utilizing geospatial models and providing data analytics and study design around patient health outcomes for various studies related to improvements in outcomes for chronic diseases. He has collected and analyzed patient outcomes primarily for patients with diabetes and asthma and provides expertise in designing the appropriate databases to answer proposed research questions. He has also provided extensive guidance around analytics for examining the screening rates for Hepatitis C and HIV. His professional goals include increasing capacity to examine health outcomes data through utilizing electronic medical records to capture patient level information.

David Price, MD
Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Director

 Dr. Price’s research interests include concussion, pre-participation athletic screening and sudden cardiac death in athletes.  Diagnosis and management of concussion currently relies mainly on subjective criteria rather than objective criteria. Currently we are investigating an objective tool to aid in concussion diagnosis and return to play.  We currently host a large pre-participation annual screening event for athletes in the surrounding community which provides a unique opportunity to capture data on athletes regarding depression, blood pressure, cardiac status, and obesity.  Pre-participation screening of athletes serve as a valuable opportunity to screen for depressive symptoms given its increasing prevalence in adolescence. Cardiovascular screening in young athletes is also widely recommended prior to participation in competitive sports. While there is general agreement that early detection of cardiac conditions at risk for sudden cardiac arrest and death (SCA/D) is an important objective, the optimal strategy for cardiovascular screening in athletes remains an issue of considerable debate. Dr. Price, on behalf of American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, helped author a Position Statement on Cardiovascular Pre-participation Screening in Athletes: Current evidence, knowledge gaps, recommendations, and future directions.  This work has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Current Research Studies

Key Publications

1. Increasing collaboration on substance use disorder research with primary care practices through the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. Baldwin LM, Mollis B, Witwer E, Halladay JR, Ludden T, Elder N, Tapp H, Donahue KE, Johnson D, Mottus K, Olson AL, Waddell EN, Dolor RJ. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2020 Mar;112S:34-40. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2020.02.009. PMID: 32220408.

2. The CAPTURE Study: Prevalence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Primary Care Settings 2020 Yawn, B et al COPD Foundation. Accepted for publication.

3. Novel Models to Identify Census Tracts for Hepatitis C Screening Interventions. Ludden T, Shade L, Thomas J, de Hernandez BU, Mohanan S, Russo MW, Leonard M, Zamor PJ, Patterson CG, Tapp H. JABFM May 2020, 33 (3) 407-416; DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2020.03.190305. PMID: 32430372

4. Electronic medical record alert activation increase hepatitis C and HIV screening rates in primary care practices within a large healthcare system. Tapp H, Ludden T, Shade L, Thomas J, Mohanan S, Leonard M. Prev Med Rep. 2020 Mar; 17: 101036.  Published online 2020 Jan 7. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.101036. PMCID: PMC6965743

5. Patient and provider perspectives on uptake of a shared decision making intervention for asthma in primary care practices. Welch M, Ludden T, Mottus K, Bray P, Hendrickson L, Rees J, Halladay J, Tapp H. J Asthma. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2020 May 1.Published in final edited form as: J Asthma. 2019 May; 56(5): 562–572. Published online 2018 Jun 21.  doi: 10.1080/02770903.2018.1471703. PMCID: PMC6515918

6. What types of dissemination of information occurred between researchers, providers and clinical staff while implementing an asthma shared decision-making intervention: a directed content analysis. Ludden T, Shade L, Welch M, Halladay J, Donahue KE, Coyne-Beasley T, Bray P, Tapp H. BMJ Open. 2020 Mar 8;10(3):e030883. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030883.