Research Project
9967455
Project Summary?Didactic Interactions There is a critical need to provide educational activities to assist researchers and clinicians in the consistent and meaningful use of the vast array of technologies that are currently available to assess patient performance. Scientists and clinicians at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Northwestern University have extensive experience successfully using sensors, mobile apps, and other devices with their patients in the clinic, home, and community. Our highly collaborative scientists and clinicians will share their knowledge, experience, and technical and clinical know-how to provide training and enhance expertise across the field of rehabilitation research and practice. Educational programs for the Center for Smart use of Technologies to Assess Real-world Outcomes (C- STAR) will be designed and organized by our scientific and clinical experts who will ensure that a broad range of topics relevant to C-STAR are suitable for diverse audiences within the rehabilitation field, and do not overlap with existing materials or educational offerings. Specifically, we aim to: (1) Develop a broad range of educational activities for research and clinical professionals within rehabilitation and related fields who are using (or plan to use) technology to measure patient performance; (2) Customize content to our target audience by providing these educational activities through a variety of mechanisms including onsite at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, at professional meetings, and through live and archived distance or online learning methods; (3) Build an online repository of learning materials that is accessible to the research community, thereby increasing our reach in a cost-effective manner. Some examples of programming will include in-person conferences or courses, accredited continuing education online courses, webinars, podcast series, special sessions at national professional conferences (such as the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine or IEEE-sponsored conferences), and free seats to Academy continuing education programs. To achieve these aims, we will leverage the resources of the Academy?the not-for-profit educational arm of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. The Academy is one of the largest centers for continuing rehabilitation education in the world, offering more than 80 on-demand webinars on a wide-range of rehabilitation topics including brain injury, stroke, and spinal cord injury. In order to ensure that the needs of the C-STAR community are being addressed and to identify new areas in which additional educational activities could be developed, we will regularly conduct needs assessments and collect feedback from our learners.
