SBIR Phase II: Novel Tactile Online Nursing Trainer for Clinical Breast Exams

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目是关于一个影响数百万女性的毁灭性医疗错误，这是一种可以用手感觉到的乳腺癌，但仍未得到证实，数月或数年未得到治疗。被称为漏诊的、可触及的乳腺癌，原因很明显是缺乏培训和技能。其结果是推迟了数百万妇女的诊断，以及更广泛、更痛苦和更昂贵的疾病。表现不佳的乳房检查也会导致不必要的高假阳性率，这意味着？并不是真正存在的疾病。MammaCare的科学家为护士和医生开发并标准化了培训和认证，以进行熟练和有效的乳房检查。这项培训由专家讲师讲授，他们教从业者如何可靠地检测出豌豆大小的微小可疑乳腺肿瘤。然而，这种培训既昂贵又耗时。它无法接触到数千名进行这些考试的护理和医学专业学生和从业者。这个项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过让所有检查妇女的护士能够发现疾病的最小、最早的迹象来减少乳腺癌的死亡人数。为此，我们创建了一种新的基于技能的教学技术，使用高保真乳房模型、计算机和互联网为从业者提供基本的乳房检查技能。培训是自我管理的，费用低廉，而且有效。我们在梅奥诊所的同事发现，护生和护士在培训后比接受培训前在发现乳腺肿瘤方面要准确得多。这项技术对数百万女性的潜在好处是减少医疗差错，提高乳腺癌筛查的准确性，以及更好的无病生存机会。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is about a devastating medical error that affects millions of women, a breast cancer that can be felt by hand but remains unconfirmed and untreated for months or years. Known as missed, palpable breast cancer, the cause is plainly, lack of training and skill. The result is delayed diagnosis for millions of women and disease that is more extensive, painful, and costly. Poorly performed breast exams also result in unnecessarily high rates of false positive findings, which means ?detecting? disease that is not truly present. MammaCare scientists developed and standardized training and certification for nurses and physicians to perform proficient and effective breast exams. This training is taught by expert instructors who teach practitioners how to reliably detect small, suspicious breast tumors, about the size of a pea. However, this training is costly and time consuming. It cannot reach the thousands of nursing and medical students and practitioners who perform these exams. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to reduce the toll of breast cancer by giving all nurses who examine women the skill to detect the smallest, earliest signs of the disease. To do this we created a new skill-based teaching technology using high-fidelity breast models, computers and the Internet to provide practitioners with essential breast exam skills. The training is self-administered, inexpensive, and effective. Our colleagues at the Mayo Clinic found that nursing students and nurses were much more accurate in detecting breast tumors after the training than they were before receiving it. The potential benefits of this technology for millions of women are reduced medical errors, improved breast cancer screening accuracy, and a better chance for disease-free survival.