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

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）的第一阶段项目是关于一种影响数百万妇女的毁灭性医疗错误，一种可以用手感觉到的乳腺癌，但在几个月或几年的时间里都没有得到证实和治疗。被称为漏诊、可触及的乳腺癌，其原因很明显，就是缺乏培训和技能。其结果是数百万妇女的诊断延误，疾病范围更广、更痛苦、更昂贵。做得不好的乳房检查也会导致假阳性结果的不必要的高比率，这意味着“检测不出”。不真实存在的疾病。MammaCare的科学家们为护士和医生制定了标准化的培训和认证，以熟练有效地进行乳房检查。该培训由专业讲师讲授，他们教从业者如何可靠地检测豌豆大小的小型可疑乳腺肿瘤。然而，这种培训既昂贵又耗时。它无法触及成千上万的护理和医学学生以及进行这些考试的从业人员。该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是，通过使所有为妇女检查的护士掌握发现最微小、最早的疾病迹象的技能，减少乳腺癌的死亡人数。为了做到这一点，我们创造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，不贵且有效。我们在梅奥诊所的同事发现，护理专业的学生和护士在接受培训后比接受培训前更准确地检测出乳房肿瘤。这项技术对数百万妇女的潜在好处是减少医疗差错，提高乳腺癌筛查的准确性，并有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.