2024-2025 review

Patient Care highlights

Our faculty provide high-quality care at 11 clinical sites - conducting nearly 175,000 visits each year.

As primary care doctors for adults, our division has the privilege of supporting patients throughout their healthcare journey. We provide comprehensive general and preventive care and deliver essential preventative services, and address systemic challenges affecting primary care.

Reducing Physician Burnout from Patient Portal Messages

One of the most pressing challenges facing our primary care providers, and a leading cause of burnout, is managing the overwhelming demand of patient portal messages. To address this issue, our division has focused on identifying key drivers of in-basket burden and how to make it more manageable. Jennifer Lukela, MD; Nicole Hadeed, MD; and Greta Branford, MD, have led our division's implementation of low-cost interventions aimed at streamlining communication and improving efficiency. Results from one of our studies showed defining team roles and creating a clear routing guide for directing messages led to fewer portal messages per physician and a positive outlook on workload. Another study showed that allowing providers structured time during their workday to address messages and provide asynchronous care improved physicians' sense of ability to respond in a timely fashion to urgent patient concerns while also improving well-being by reducing overwhelm from the in-basket. Most importantly, this did not significantly change total patient visits or billing - which were key findings in a time when finances were top of mind for healthcare leaders and access to care remained a concern.

Advancing Health Care Using Artificial Intelligence

In 2025, Michigan Medicine implemented Dragon Ambient Experience (DAX) Copilot, an AI-powered tool designed to reduce administrative burden and improve clinician well-being. The system listens to patient encounters and generates real-time clinical notes, which clinicians review and finalize, allowing them to focus more on patient care. Elizabeth Harry, MD, Michigan Medicine's Chief Well-Being Officer and physician in our division stated, "Clinicians spend significant time on administrative tasks, which contributes to burnout. DAX Copilot helps reduce cognitive load and frees providers to focus on their patients.” A pilot study with 196 clinicians showed promising results: a 15% reduction in cognitive load, decreased after-hours charting, lower burnout, and improved work-life balance. Benefits were observed across multiple roles, including physicians, pharmacists, and social workers, with primary care providers and women seeing the greatest improvement. DAX Copilot works by capturing clinical conversations and drafting notes directly into the electronic health record. By reducing documentation time, clinicians can spend more attention on listening, decision-making, and patient interaction, leading to more personalized care. “This technology allows clinicians to return to the core of their profession—providing attentive, compassionate care—while reducing the administrative burdens that can be overwhelming,” said Greta Branford, MD, physician lead of the DAX Copilot team and faculty member in our Division of General Medicine. As Michigan Medicine scales this initiative, the tool represents a strategic effort to enhance clinician well-being and improve patient care through innovative technology.

MPrOVE & Cardiology Partners Bring Remote Monitoring to Hypertension Patients

Michigan Program on Value Enhancement (MPrOVE) brings together experts from the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and across our health system to identify, design, and evaluate projects focused on quality improvement. MPrOVE member, Jefferey Kullgren, MD, MPH, and project manager Val Mefford, MPH, partnered with cardiology providers to streamline blood pressure measurement collection for hypertension referrals at the Frankel Cardiovascular Center. Their idea for a billable, remote monitoring program has set up a win for patients and the cardiology department by using technology in a way that improves access and reduces burden on cardiology staff and providers.

research highlights

Healthy Aging Study Received the Largest Grant in U-M History

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a long-running study providing research data on the challenges of aging, and co-directed by Kenneth Langa, MD, PhD, received $195 million in new federal funding from the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration - making it the largest research grant in University of Michigan history. Dr. Langa and his colleagues have completed several dementia-related studies with HRS funding, examining topics such as the harmonized cognitive assessment protocol, neighborhood socioeconomic status and memory change after a cancer diagnosis, and the comparison of cognitive function and mood in the post-pandemic era.

Polling America’s Older Adults to Guide Health Policy

Jefferey Kullgren, MD, MPH, has completed several polls on adults over 50 as director of the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation's National Poll on Healthy Aging. The poll data has helped inform the public, health care providers, and policymakers on issues related to health, health care, and health policy affecting Americans 50 years of age and older on a variety of topics, including:

• music, cannabis, health literacy, caregiving, and friendship
• extreme weather and climate change
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• health companionship
• ultra-processed foods
• disability and how those with health conditions view it

Medicare-Covered Weight Loss Medication

Millions of older Americans with obesity could potentially get Medicare assistance for weight loss medication to reduce their risk of heart problems. Researchers like Alexander Chaitoff, MD, MPH, are studying the level of cardiovascular risk that should make someone eligible for this coverage, how many people could become eligible, and what it could cost the country. He and other researchers have uncovered a wide range of answers that differ by millions of people and billions of dollars, depending on how private insurance plans that contract with Medicare are potentially allowed to proceed. As many as 3.6 million people are most likely to qualify.

Value of Virtual Care Models

As Congress have been drawing concerns about the cost of virtual care, particularly regarding Medicare coverage, our faculty came forward to provide evidence-based insights. Some of Congress' main concerns with virtual care models have been that they lead to unnecessary testing and are a waste of money. Our faculty, including Mark Fendrick, MD, have evaluated the value of virtual primary care delivery models especially for vulnerable populations. The ability to have an appointment with a doctor or other healthcare professional through telehealth has significantly improved access to care for people with low income in Michigan's Medicaid expansion program. According to a study in Health Affairs Scholar by senior author, Susan Goold, MD, MHSA, MA, and a leader of the University of Michigan's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation Healthy Michigan Plan evaluation team, nearly two-thirds (63%) of patients who had a telehealth appointment in the past year said they received care they could, or would, not have gotten otherwise.

Patients First Innovation Initiative Pilot Funding

The Patients First Innovation Initiative, directed by Sarah Hawley, PhD, MPH, provides expertise, promotes multidisciplinary collaboration, and supports research focused on improving patient-centered care through planning consultations and pilot project funding. In 2025, Patients First launched its second pilot funding opportunity for early career faculty in internal medicine. Adam Markovitz, MD, PhD, was a grant recipient for his study "Insurer Acquisitions of Primary Care Practices; Impact of Vertical Consolidation on Access Quality." Dr. Markovitz and his team have studied the influence of "vertical integration" between insurance companies and primary care practices on the everyday care of older adults - helping inform policy changes on primary care access, quality of care, and health equity.

Mentorship Programs

Led by Jefferey Kullgren, MD, MPH; Lauren Wallner, PhD, MPH; and Jennifer Lukela, MD, our division implemented six mentorship programs tailored for our faculty across all career stages and tracks. The programs include:

• Peer mentoring groups for new faculty
• Mentor-matching for clinical faculty
• Mentoring teams for early-career research faculty
• Boost and coaching for mid-career faculty
• Topic-focused peer mentoring for all faculty