NSF Award
2330404
The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a software platform that teaches patients about their medication, reports patient knowledge and health status back to the health team and provides updated prescriptions from the health team to the patient. The goal is to help manage patients with complex chronic diseases. Chronic progressive diseases, such as diabetes, are difficult to manage for the patient and the physician/health team. They require frequent adjustment of behavior and medications and are challenging for physicians to assess, confusing for patients to understand, and often inconvenient and expensive to manage. In addition, high demand limits patients’ access to clinic time, and patient education in the clinic is time-consuming. The proposed technology is designed to provide real-time, objective assessment of patient understanding and likely adherence to treatment prescriptions, and of the impact of those treatments as reported by physiology data from wearable patient monitors, and facilitate real-time, efficient clinician-patient communication to adjust ineffective treatments. The proposed technology may be a step toward improved access, health outcomes, cost-containment, staff stability, and patient and clinician satisfaction. This technology also may have application in other settings where real-time human education for performance assessment and optimization is desirable, such as elite athlete training, military readiness, and operations in remote terrestrial, aquatic, and off-world environment extremes.<br/><br/>This I-Corps project is based on the development of a software application that applies Artificial Intelligence and a smart device to facilitate health improvement. The proposed technology uses wearable health monitoring technology and intelligent assistance theory to accomplish rapid, thorough clinical assessment and patient comprehension and implementation of updated prescription information. The proposed technology transmits objective patient knowledge performance and physiological data from a wearable health monitor to the clinical team. The clinical team may then respond with updated prescription instructions to the patient in real-time for optimal health improvement with minimal delay. Studies show that the proposed technology may facilitate education and performance assessment in an enjoyable, efficient, quantifiable manner for adults and youth. The current application leverages multiple engine and platform strategies to present customized learning, gaming, and practice strategies to the patient, then transmits performance data along with physiological information via the electronic medical record to the clinical team. The proposed approach may mitigate the impact of complex progressive diseases by early intervention and rapid adjustment of treatment.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
