A survey of barriers and facilitators to the adoption of buprenorphine prescribing after implementation of a New Jersey-wide incentivized DATA-2000 waiver training program.

BACKGROUND: Opioid-involved overdose deaths continue to rise in the US, despite availability of highly effective treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD), in part due to the insufficient number of treatment providers. Barriers include the need for providers to gain expertise and confidence in providing MOUD to their patients who need these treatments. To mitigate this barrier, New Jersey sponsored a buprenorphine training program with financial incentives for participation, which met the then existing requirement for the DATA-2000 waiver. In a 2019 follow-up survey, participants reported on barriers and facilitators to subsequent buprenorphine prescribing. METHODS: Participants in the training program completed a 10-min electronic survey distributed via email. The survey addressed demographics, practice characteristics, current buprenorphine prescribing, and barriers and facilitators to adoption and/or scale up of buprenorphine prescribing. RESULTS: Of the 440 attendees with a valid email address, 91 individuals completed the survey for a response rate of 20.6%. Of the 91 respondents, 89 were eligible prescribers and included in the final analysis. Respondents were predominantly female (n = 55, 59.6%) and physicians (n = 55, 61.8%); representing a broad range of specialties and practice sites. 65 (73%) of respondents completed the training and DEA-registration, but only 31 (34.8%) were actively prescribing buprenorphine. The most frequently cited barriers to buprenorphine prescribing were lack of access to support services such as specialists in addiction, behavioral health services, and psychiatry. The most frequently reported potential facilitators were integrated systems with direct access to addiction specialists and psychosocial services, easier referral to behavioral health services, more institutional support, and improved guidance on clinical practice standards for OUD treatment. CONCLUSION: More than half (52.3%) of those who completed incentivized training and DEA registration failed to actively prescribe buprenorphine. Results highlight provider perceptions of inadequate availability of support for the complex needs of patients with OUD and suggest that broader adoption of buprenorphine prescribing will require scaling up support to clinicians, including increased availability of specialized addiction and mental health services.

Utilising Surrogate Models to Approximate Cardiac Potentials when Solving Inverse Problems via Bayesian Techniques.

Solving inverse problems is computationally expensive, if not infeasible, under specific scenarios. For example, many forward solutions are required when solving inverse problems using Bayesian techniques. In this work, a novel inference protocol is established, that can be used to infer the cardiac bidomain conductivities and the cardiac fibre rotation angle (bidomain parameters). This protocol uses a surrogate model, developed using generalised polynomial chaos techniques, to approximate cardiac potentials on a multi-electrode array. The resulting surrogate model is used in conjunction with Bayesian inference techniques to infer the bidomain parameters. A lower-order surrogate model (order three) can effectively characterise the influence of the extracellular conductivities and fibre rotation on the cardiac potentials; however, it is recommended that a higher-order surrogate model expansion of order seven be used to adequately characterise the influence of the intracellular conductivities as well. This seventh order surrogate model was successfully used to infer the extracellular conductivities and fibre rotation angle from a single set of synthetically generated noisy experimental potentials, while the intracellular conductivities were unable to be retrieved accurately under this scenario.

Which bidomain conductivity is the most important for modelling heart and torso surface potentials during ischaemia?

Mathematical simulations using the bidomain model, which represents cardiac tissue as consisting of an intracellular and an extracellular space, are a key approach that can be used to improve understanding of heart conditions such as ischaemia. However, key inputs to these models, such as the bidomain conductivity values, are not known with any certainty. Since efforts are underway to measure these values, it would be useful to be able to quantify the effect on model outputs of uncertainty in these inputs, and also to determine, if possible, which are the most important values to focus on in experimental studies. Our previous work has systematically studied the sensitivity of heart surface potentials to the bidomain conductivity values, and this was performed using a half-ellipsoidal model of the left ventricle. This study uses a bi-ventricular heart in a torso model and this time looks at the sensitivity of the torso surface potentials, as well as the heart surface potentials, to various conductivity values (blood, torso and the six bidomain conductivities). We found that both epicardial and torso potentials are the most sensitive to the intracellular longitudinal (along the cardiac fibres) conductivity (gil) with more minor sensitivity to the torso conductivity, and that changes in gil have a significant effect on the surface potential distributions on both the torso and the heart.

Improving Access to Hepatitis C Treatment Using Clinical Pharmacist Services in an Uninsured, At-Risk Population at a Community Health Center.

While published cure rates for new hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments exceed 90%, barriers such as cost, medication access, housing or phone service instability, and substance use complicate medication adherence for uninsured, at-risk populations. Lincoln Community Health Center (LCHC) Pharmacy, in collaboration with primary care providers and care coordination professionals, implemented clinical pharmacist services to facilitate treatment of HCV infection in uninsured patients using manufacturers' patient assistance programs (PAP). Eighty-four (84) uninsured patients initiated treatment at LCHC using PAP during the first two years of the program. Nearly all patients (65/67 or 97%) who completed lab monitoring at 12 weeks post-treatment achieved undetectable viral load or a sustained virologic response (SVR-12), considered a proxy for cure. Successfully treating HCV infection in an uninsured, at-risk population may be achieved in a safety-net community health center by incorporating clinical pharmacist services into a team-based model.

A modified approach to determine the six cardiac bidomain conductivities.

Accurate values for the six cardiac bidomain conductivities are crucial for meaningful computational studies of conduction in cardiac tissue, and are yet to be determined by experimental means. Although previous studies have proposed an approach using a multi-electrode array to measure potentials, from which the conductivities can be determined, it has been found that the conductivities cannot be retrieved consistently when the noise in the potentials varies. This paper presents a protocol, which not only has been shown to retrieve the conductivities to a reasonable accuracy, but does so under the presence of a more appropriate additive Gaussian noise model, while using fewer computational resources. Through repetitions of the protocol, a comparison of two pre-fabricated 128 electrode arrays, one array with a square arrangement of electrodes and the other with a rectangular arrangement, was made against a 75-electrode array proposed in previous studies. Results indicated that the two pre-fabricated arrays were generally more capable of obtaining the cardiac conductivities to a higher degree of accuracy than the 75-electrode array. The 128-electrode rectangular array was orientated such that the length of the array first ran along the direction of the fibres, then was reorientated such that the length of the array ran perpendicular to the direction of the fibres. The 128-electrode rectangular array, when orientated in this manner, was more capable of retrieving the conductivities than the remainder of the arrays tested, and thus we suggest this arrangement be used during experimental trials.

Disturbance type and species life history predict mammal responses to humans.

Human activity and land use change impact every landscape on Earth, driving declines in many animal species while benefiting others. Species ecological and life history traits may predict success in human-dominated landscapes such that only species with "winning" combinations of traits will persist in disturbed environments. However, this link between species traits and successful coexistence with humans remains obscured by the complexity of anthropogenic disturbances and variability among study systems. We compiled detection data for 24 mammal species from 61 populations across North America to quantify the effects of (1) the direct presence of people and (2) the human footprint (landscape modification) on mammal occurrence and activity levels. Thirty-three percent of mammal species exhibited a net negative response (i.e., reduced occurrence or activity) to increasing human presence and/or footprint across populations, whereas 58% of species were positively associated with increasing disturbance. However, apparent benefits of human presence and footprint tended to decrease or disappear at higher disturbance levels, indicative of thresholds in mammal species' capacity to tolerate disturbance or exploit human-dominated landscapes. Species ecological and life history traits were strong predictors of their responses to human footprint, with increasing footprint favoring smaller, less carnivorous, faster-reproducing species. The positive and negative effects of human presence were distributed more randomly with respect to species trait values, with apparent winners and losers across a range of body sizes and dietary guilds. Differential responses by some species to human presence and human footprint highlight the importance of considering these two forms of human disturbance separately when estimating anthropogenic impacts on wildlife. Our approach provides insights into the complex mechanisms through which human activities shape mammal communities globally, revealing the drivers of the loss of larger predators in human-modified landscapes.

Preexposure Prophylaxis Outcomes in an Urban Community in North Carolina: Discontinuation of Care and Sexually Transmitted Infections.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have examined long-term outcomes among persons who initiate preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in the South, including PrEP discontinuation and sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates. METHODS: Care discontinuation (>6 months without a PrEP appointment) and incident STIs were evaluated for patients at 2 PrEP clinics in Durham, NC. We tested for predictors of discontinuation as a binary variable using logistic regression. Model covariates included age, race/ethnicity, sex, known HIV-positive partner, commercial sex work, men who have sex with men (MSM) versus not MSM, type of insurance, and clinic site. A similar analysis was completed for STI incidence, controlling for days in the study. RESULTS: Among 271 patients, mean age was 33.2 years, 46.9% were Black and 11.1% were Latino, 81.2% were MSM, and 32% were uninsured. Preexposure prophylaxis was discontinued in 47%, and another 11% had intermittent care. Sexually transmitted infection incidence was 45.4/100 person-years, and 5 patients were diagnosed with HIV at baseline or in follow-up. Men who have sex with men were less likely to discontinue PrEP relative to non-MSM (odds ratio [OR], 0.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.10-0.64). Baseline STI was associated with a higher likelihood of incident STI (OR, 8.19; 95% CI, 3.69-19.21), whereas care discontinuation was associated with a lower likelihood of STI (OR, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.11-0.65). CONCLUSIONS: Preexposure prophylaxis programs in the Southern United States are reaching uninsured and predominantly Black and Latino MSM, but discontinuation rates are high despite elevated rates of incident STI and HIV. Further work is required to elucidate causes of PrEP discontinuation and encourage persistence in care.

Approaches for determining cardiac bidomain conductivity values: progress and challenges.

Modelling the electrical activity of the heart is an important tool for understanding electrical function in various diseases and conduction disorders. Clearly, for model results to be useful, it is necessary to have accurate inputs for the models, in particular the commonly used bidomain model. However, there are only three sets of four experimentally determined conductivity values for cardiac ventricular tissue and these are inconsistent, were measured around 40 years ago, often produce different results in simulations and do not fully represent the three-dimensional anisotropic nature of cardiac tissue. Despite efforts in the intervening years, difficulties associated with making the measurements and also determining the conductivities from the experimental data have not yet been overcome. In this review, we summarise what is known about the conductivity values, as well as progress to date in meeting the challenges associated with both the mathematical modelling and the experimental techniques. Graphical abstract Epicardial potential distributions, arising from a subendocardial ischaemic region, modelled using conductivity data from the indicated studies.

Differences between models of partial thickness and subendocardial ischaemia in terms of sensitivity analyses of ST-segment epicardial potential distributions.

Mathematical modelling is a useful technique to help elucidate the connection between non-transmural ischaemia and ST elevation and depression of the ECG. Generally, models represent non-transmural ischaemia using an ischaemic zone that extends from the endocardium partway to the epicardium. However, recent experimental work has suggested that ischaemia typically arises within the heart wall. This work examines the effect of modelling cardiac ischaemia in the left ventricle using two different models: subendocardial ischaemia and partial thickness ischaemia, representing the first and second scenarios, respectively. We found that it is possible, only in the model of subendocardial ischaemia, to see a single minimum on the epicardial surface above the ischaemic region, and this only occurs for low ischaemic thicknesses. This may help to explain the rarity of ST depression that is located over the ischaemic region. It was also found that, in both models, the epicardial potential distribution is most sensitive to the proximity of the ischaemic region to the epicardium, rather than to the thickness of the ischaemic region. Since proximity does not indicate the thickness of the ischaemic region, this suggests a reason why it may be difficult to determine the degree of ischaemia using the ST segment of the ECG.

Advancing the HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Continuum: A Collaboration Between a Public Health Department and a Federally Qualified Health Center in the Southern United States.

Uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been limited among black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), especially in the southern United States. Public health departments and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) serving predominantly uninsured populations are uniquely positioned to improve access. We evaluated a novel PrEP collaboration between a public health department and an FQHC in North Carolina (NC). In May 2015, a PrEP program was initiated that included no-cost HIV/sexually transmitted infection screening at a public health department, followed by referral to a colocated FQHC for PrEP services. We profiled the PrEP continuum for patients entering the program until February 2018. PrEP initiators and noninitiators were compared using Wilcoxon rank-sum test for continuous variables and chi-square or Fisher's exact tests for categorical variables. Of 196 patients referred to the FQHC, 60% attended an initial appointment, 43% filled a prescription, 38% persisted in care for >3 months, and 30% reported >90% adherence at follow-up. Among those presenting for initial appointments (n = 117), most were MSM (n = 95, 81%) and black (n = 62, 53%); 21 (18%) were Latinx and 9 (8%) were trans persons. Almost half (n = 55) were uninsured. We found statistically significant differences between PrEP initiators versus noninitiators based on race/ethnicity (p = 0.02), insurance status (p = 0.05), and history of sex work (p = 0.05). In conclusion, this collaborative model of PrEP care was able to reach predominantly black and Latino MSM in the southern United States. Although sustainable, program strategies to improve steps along the PrEP care continuum are vital in this population.

The effect of including increased arterial stiffness in the upper body when modelling Coarctation of the Aorta.

Coarctation of the Aorta is a congenital narrowing of the aorta and diagnosis can be difficult. Treatments result in idiopathic sequelae including hypertension. Untreated patients are known to develop increased arterial stiffness in the upper body, which worsens with time. We present results from simulations with a one-dimensional mathematical model, about the effect of stiffness, stenting, surgery and coarctation severity on blood pressure, Pulsatility and Resistivity Index. One conclusion is that increased stiffness may explain both hypertension in treated patients and why diagnosis can be difficult.

Public Awareness of HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis in Durham, North Carolina: Results of a Community Survey.

BACKGROUND Adoption of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) remains limited among populations at greatest risk for HIV acquisition. This study aims to assess awareness of PrEP among individuals in Durham, North Carolina, which has one of the highest rates of HIV diagnoses in the state.METHOD In 2015-2016, we administered a survey including questions to assess PrEP awareness to individuals at multiple venues throughout Durham, North Carolina.RESULTS A total of 139 respondents were surveyed. The majority were male (66%) and black/African American (75%); 21% were Hispanic/Latino. There were an estimated 53 men who have sex with men (MSM), of which 18 (33%) were black MSM M 24 years of age. Overall, only 53/138 (38%) respondents were aware of PrEP. Awareness was reported among 33/52 (63%) MSM respondents, 29/46 (63%) black MSM, and 10/17 (59%) black MSM M 24 years of age. In multivariate analysis, non-heterosexual orientation, health-insured status, and prior HIV testing were significantly associated with PrEP awareness. Ninety-four (69%) of 137 respondents reported prior HIV testing.LIMITATIONS Limitations include non-random sampling and limited sample size. Further research needs to be done in other areas of North Carolina, and assessment of PrEP acceptability and uptake needs to be performed.CONCLUSION This study reveals low overall awareness of PrEP in Durham, North Carolina, indicating that expanded outreach is necessary to increase public awareness and encourage adoption of PrEP among all demographics at risk for HIV.

Best Practices in Videoconferencing-Based Telemental Health April 2018.

Telemental health, in the form of interactive videoconferencing, has become a critical tool in the delivery of mental health care. It has demonstrated the ability to increase access to and quality of care, and in some settings to do so more effectively than treatment delivered in-person. This article updates and consolidates previous guidance developed by The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and The American Psychiatric Association (APA) on the development, implementation, administration, and provision of telemental health services. The guidance included in this article is intended to assist in the development and delivery of effective and safe telemental health services founded on expert consensus, research evidence, available resources, and patient needs. It is recommended that the material reviewed be contemplated in conjunction with APA and ATA resources, as well as the pertinent literature, for additional details on the topics covered.

Implementing standardized substance use disorder screening in primary care.

OBJECTIVES: This quality improvement initiative aimed to develop and implement a protocol for an alcohol and substance use disorder screening for primary care. METHODS: The Two Item Conjoint Screen was selected and a process was piloted by care teams. Quality improvement tools were used to improve the protocol. Primary care providers (PCPs) were surveyed about their use of the screening protocol in the primary care setting. Data on total number of screenings were collected through the electronic health record. RESULTS: Implementation resulted in more than 30,000 screenings completed in 2016. PCP survey results indicated that PCPs felt screening was helpful in identifying potential substance use problems (100%) and that most providers (76%) felt that overall patient care improved after screening was initiated. CONCLUSIONS: Brief alcohol and substance use disorder screenings can be easily implemented and well integrated into primary care settings. PCPs found screenings to be valuable in caring for patients.

Sensitivity analysis of ST-segment epicardial potentials arising from changes in ischaemic region conductivities in early and late stage ischaemia.

Although computational studies are increasingly used to gain insight into diseases such as myocardial ischaemia, there is still considerable uncertainty about the values for many of the parameters in these studies. This is particularly true for the bidomain conductivity values that are used in normal tissue and, even more so, in ischaemic tissue, when modelling ischaemia. In this work, we extended a previous study that used a half-ellipsoidal model and a realistic model to study subendocardial ischaemia during the ST segment, so that we could simulate both early and late stage ischaemia. We found that, for both stages of ischaemia, there was still the same connection between the degree of ischaemia and the development of features such as minima and maxima in the epicardial potential distribution (EPD), although the magnitudes of the potentials were very often less, which may be significant in terms of detecting them experimentally. Using uncertainty quantification associated with the ischaemic region conductivities, we also determined that the EPD features were sensitive to the ischaemic region extracellular normal and longitudinal conductivities during early stage ischaemia, whereas, during late stage ischaemia, the intracellular longitudinal conductivity was the most significant. However, since we again found that these effects were minor compared with the effects of fibre rotation angle and ischaemic depth, this might suggest that it is not necessary to use different conductivity values inside and outside the ischaemic region when modelling ST segment subendocardial ischaemia, unless the magnitudes of the potentials are an important part of the study.

Determining the most significant input parameters in models of subendocardial ischaemia and their effect on ST segment epicardial potential distributions.

There is considerable interest in simulating ischaemia in the ventricle and its effect on the electrocardiogram, because a better understanding of the connection between the two may lead to improvements in diagnosis of myocardial ischaemia. In this work we studied subendocardial ischaemia, in a simplified half-ellipsoidal bidomain model of a ventricle, and its effect on ST segment epicardial potential distributions (EPDs). We found that the EPD changed as the ischaemic depth increased, from a single minimum (min1) over the ischaemic region to a maximum (max) there, with min1 over the border of the region. Lastly, a second minimum (min2) developed on the opposite side of the ischaemic region, in addition to min1 and max. We replicated these results in a realistic ventricular model and showed that the min1 only case could be found for ischaemic depths of up to around 35% of the ventricular wall. In addition, we systematically examined the sensitivity of EPD parameters, such as the potentials and positions of min1, max and min2, to various inputs to the half-ellipsoidal model, such as fibre rotation angle, ischaemic depth and conductivities. We found that the EPD parameters were not sensitive to the blood or transverse bidomain conductivities and were most sensitive to either ischaemic depth and/or fibre rotation angle. This allowed us to conclude that the asynchronous development of the two minima might provide a way of distinguishing between low and high thickness subendocardial ischaemia, and that this method may well be valid despite variability in the population.

Quantifying the effect of uncertainty in input parameters in a simplified bidomain model of partial thickness ischaemia.

Reduced blood flow in the coronary arteries can lead to damaged heart tissue (myocardial ischaemia). Although one method for detecting myocardial ischaemia involves changes in the ST segment of the electrocardiogram, the relationship between these changes and subendocardial ischaemia is not fully understood. In this study, we modelled ST-segment epicardial potentials in a slab model of cardiac ventricular tissue, with a central ischaemic region, using the bidomain model, which considers conduction longitudinal, transverse and normal to the cardiac fibres. We systematically quantified the effect of uncertainty on the input parameters, fibre rotation angle, ischaemic depth, blood conductivity and six bidomain conductivities, on outputs that characterise the epicardial potential distribution. We found that three typical types of epicardial potential distributions (one minimum over the central ischaemic region, a tripole of minima, and two minima flanking a central maximum) could all occur for a wide range of ischaemic depths. In addition, the positions of the minima were affected by both the fibre rotation angle and the ischaemic depth, but not by changes in the conductivity values. We also showed that the magnitude of ST depression is affected only by changes in the longitudinal and normal conductivities, but not by the transverse conductivities.

The effects of tapering and artery wall stiffness on treatments for Coarctation of the Aorta.

Coarctation of the Aorta is a congenital narrowing of the aorta. Two commonly used treatments are resection and end-to-end anastomosis, and stent placements. We simulate blood flow through one-dimensional models of aortas. Different artery stiffnesses, due to treatments, are included in our model, and used to compare blood flow properties in the treated aortas. We expand our previously published model to include the natural tapering of aortas. We look at change in aorta wall radius, blood pressure and blood flow velocity, and find that, of the two treatments, the resection and end-to-end anastomosis treatment more closely matches healthy aortas.

Linguistic and Cultural Adaptation of a Computer-Based Counseling Program (CARE+ Spanish) to Support HIV Treatment Adherence and Risk Reduction for People Living With HIV/AIDS: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease in the United States disproportionately affects minorities, including Latinos. Barriers including language are associated with lower antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence seen among Latinos, yet ART and interventions for clinic visit adherence are rarely developed or delivered in Spanish. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to adapt a computer-based counseling tool, demonstrated to reduce HIV-1 viral load and sexual risk transmission in a population of English-speaking adults, for use during routine clinical visits for an HIV-positive Spanish-speaking population (CARE+ Spanish); the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was the theoretical framework guiding program development. METHODS: A longitudinal randomized controlled trial was conducted from June 4, 2010 to March 29, 2012. Participants were recruited from a comprehensive HIV treatment center comprising three clinics in New York City. Eligibility criteria were (1) adults (age ≥18 years), (2) Latino birth or ancestry, (3) speaks Spanish (mono- or multilingual), and (4) on antiretrovirals. Linear and generalized mixed linear effects models were used to analyze primary outcomes, which included ART adherence, sexual transmission risk behaviors, and HIV-1 viral loads. Exit interviews were offered to purposively selected intervention participants to explore cultural acceptability of the tool among participants, and focus groups explored the acceptability and system efficiency issues among clinic providers, using the TAM framework. RESULTS: A total of 494 Spanish-speaking HIV clinic attendees were enrolled and randomly assigned to the intervention (arm A: n=253) or risk assessment-only control (arm B, n=241) group and followed up at 3-month intervals for one year. Gender distribution was 296 (68.4%) male, 110 (25.4%) female, and 10 (2.3%) transgender. By study end, 433 of 494 (87.7%) participants were retained. Although intervention participants had reduced viral loads, increased ART adherence and decreased sexual transmission risk behaviors over time, these findings were not statistically significant. We also conducted 61 qualitative exit interviews with participants and two focus groups with a total of 16 providers. CONCLUSIONS: A computer-based counseling tool grounded in the TAM theoretical model and delivered in Spanish was acceptable and feasible to implement in a high-volume HIV clinic setting. It was able to provide evidence-based, linguistically appropriate ART adherence support without requiring additional staff time, bilingual status, or translation services. We found that language preferences and cultural acceptability of a computer-based counseling tool exist on a continuum in our urban Spanish-speaking population. Theoretical frameworks of technology's usefulness for behavioral modification need further exploration in other languages and cultures. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01013935; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01013935 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6ikaD3MT7).

Six Conductivity Values to Use in the Bidomain Model of Cardiac Tissue.

GOAL: The aim of this work is to produce a consistent set of six conductivity values for use in the bidomain model of cardiac tissue. METHODS: Studies in 2007 by Hooks et al. and in 2009 by Caldwell et al. have found that, in the directions longitudinal:transverse:normal (l:t:n) to the cardiac fibers, ratios of bulk conductivities and conduction velocities are each approximately in the ratio 4:2:1. These results are used here as the basis for a method that can find sets of six normalized bidomain conductivity values. RESULTS: It is found that the ratios involving transverse and normal conductivities are quite consistent, allowing new light to be shed on conductivity in the normal direction. For example, it is found that the ratio of transverse to normal conductivity is much greater in the intracellular (i) than the extracellular (e) domain. Using parameter values from experimental studies leads to the proposal of a new nominal six conductivity dataset: gil=2.4, gel=2.4, git=0.35, get=2.0, gin=0.08, and gen=1.1 (all in mS/cm). CONCLUSION: When it is used to model partial thickness ischaemia, this dataset produces epicardial potential distributions in accord with experimental studies in an animal model. It is, therefore, suggested that the dataset is suitable for use in numerical simulations. SIGNIFICANCE: Since the bidomain approach is the most commonly used method for modeling cardiac electrophysiological phenomena, new information about conductivity in the normal direction, as well as a consistent set of six conductivity values, is valuable for researchers who perform simulation studies.