About
Dr. Jindal has been a faculty physician at the Department of Internal Medicine since 2005 and the Medical Director of Internal Medicine Clinic since 2011. In her role as the medical director of Internal Medicine Clinic, she initiated various quality improvement and research projects. Some of her major research interest areas are behavior change especially in the context of chronic disease management, substance use and effective communication skills. Since then, she has had the privilege to work on various projects with Clemson University faculty such as: • iHeart self-management app development with Dr. Lingling Zhang: Seed grant funded • Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and group counseling in patients with prediabetes with Dr. Lu Shi: Seed grant funded • Mindfulness in patients with physical inactivity, substance use and depression and anxiety with Dr. Lu Shi: received GHA funding earlier this year. • Optimizing Care for People Living with Multiple Chronic Conditions: Mindful Care Planning for Interprofessional Care Teams: applied for AHRQ grant with Dr. Karyn Jones • Coaches Advancing Recovery (CARE) through Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (CARE-SBIRT): • Applied to SAMHSA with Dr. Sharon Holder. Many of these projects are currently underway and she is in the initial stages of working on two open funding opportunities with Drs. Shi and Jones. She is also a clinical faculty member of the Integrated Practice of Medicine 1 and 2 courses at the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville.
How their research is transforming health care
Dr. Jindal’s area of clinical work is with the Internal Medicine Clinic, which provides primary care to about 2,000 patients a year. Most of these patients come from underserved backgrounds. In her role as the medical director of Internal Medicine Clinic, her scholarly work has been focused on addressing various barriers to comprehensive chronic disease management for patients with low socioeconomic status. Her overarching research goal is to screen for coexisting disorders like substance use and depression in patients with chronic medical diseases, address with effective communication strategies like Motivational Interviewing and empowering the patients with tools such as mindfulness for self-management and sustainability of behavior change. One of Dr. Jindal's research projects in 2012, incorporated universal screening for depression in the clinic, thus increasing screening rates, diagnosis and management of depression. Current mindfulness projects are focused on providing intervention like mindfulness available and affordable to patients who need the most, the ones with chronic medical diseases as diabetes and poor availability of resources. Another research project of his has involved training primary care work force in communication strategies such as Motivational Interviewing to empower future physicians in effective communication skills for behavior change. SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment), a SAMHSA initiative, laid the foundation for addressing substance use in the clinic, and his efforts in this area over last two years have been focused on disseminating SBIRT knowledge and services throughout the system. Implementing strategies as described in various projects above are some key transformational steps in population health management.
Health research keywords
Behavior change, Chronic disease management and care coordination, Communication, Motivational interviewing, Mindfulness to address behavior change, Substance use and behavior health disorders, Substance use, Depression diagnosis and management in primary care, Colorectal cancer screening, Social determinants of health training and curricular integration, Shared decision making
