Patients with critical limb ischemia — an advanced form of peripheral artery disease (PAD) caused by a severe blockage in the arteries of the lower limbs — have a far greater risk for a major amputation, cardiovascular events, or death without the appropriate medical therapy. Members of the Vascular Medicine Outcomes (VAMOS) research program are changing that paradigm.
Research led by VAMOS has revealed how a holistic treatment approach could drastically improve outcomes for these high-risk patients. Jeremy Provance, PhD, MS, a postdoctoral fellow, uses complex biological data to find avenues that can improve health.
“My mentors are Kim Smolderen, PhD and Carlos Mena-Hurtado, MD. A key lesson that I've learned from them is the importance of iteration with an interdisciplinary team. Without consistently poking holes in your ideas and bringing in new perspectives, it's tough to make them better,” said Provance.
Provance attended William Jewell College where he developed an interest in health care and data science. He earned a master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine in the multidisciplinary field of bioinformatics.
“I work with large data sets studying patients with cardiovascular disease, which provides new perspectives on common conditions that are treated and studied often. With these new data resources, we can tease out patterns that are not possible to see when studying one, ten, or even 1,000 patients at a time,” said Provance.
With these new data resources, we can tease out patterns that are not possible to see when studying one, ten, or even 1,000 patients at a time.
Jeremy Provance, PhD, MS
Although additional research on optimal medical therapy for patients with PAD is needed, the team has advocated for the development of decision-support tools to foster shared decision-making in PAD and identified a critical gap in medical care.
“We recently found that over half of patients undergoing peripheral interventions for PAD were not on guideline-directed medical therapy at procedure discharge. Without optimizing medications, we're missing a huge piece of effective treatment for these patients,” he said.
Provance joined the program earlier this year. Aside from practicing data science and outcomes research, he enjoys hiking and running with his wife and two dogs. “There is a lot of great nature in New Haven, and we've spent a lot of time exploring,” he said.