SBIR Phase I: HealthText: A Digital Decision Support Tool for Medicaid Patients

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是在标准的医疗保健环境之外，为得不到充分服务的医疗补助患者提供准确的、与文化相关的医疗建议。这些人往往无法获得及时的医疗建议，这导致了进一步的卫生不平等和不必要的医疗补助费用上升。医疗补助计划的患者可能不太可能与医务人员面对面接触，因为他们害怕过高的自付费用。拟议的基于移动文本的解决方案将提供免费和与文化相关的健康咨询。适当和及时的参与将为患者带来更好的结果，并可能减少不必要的前往急诊室进行常规护理。目前，对于医疗补助计划的患者，还没有一个可靠的基于文本的健康解决方案。这项服务将是实现本组织在服务不足人口中提高卫生知识普及的目标的一个关键因素。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一个文化上合适的、基于文本的数字平台，专门为医疗补助受益人和在数字健康创新中被忽略的服务不足人群设计。该项目的研究目标是检查服务不足的人口对这种卫生信息传递和卫生保健导航支持方法的接受程度。本研究将探讨使用短信的医疗保健导航员与患者的互动。这些数据将被分析，以获取所需的语音和内容模式，从而创建一个易于访问的人工智能（AI）工具，专门为医疗补助计划和其他服务不足社区的患者设计。该项目产生的数据也将有助于研究人员改进招募服务不足的黑人和西班牙裔社区进行临床试验和公共卫生研究的方法。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact / commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be to provide underserved Medicaid patients with accurate and culturally relevant medical advice outside of a standard healthcare setting. This population often lacks access to timely medical advice and this contributes to further health inequalities and unnecessary rising Medicaid costs. Medicaid patients may be less likely to engage with medical personnel face-to-face for fear of exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses. The proposed mobile text-based solution will provide cost-free and culturally relevant health advice. Proper and timely engagement will result in better outcomes for patients and potentially reduce unnecessary trips to the emergency room for routine care. Currently, there is no firmly established text-based health solution for Medicaid patients. This service will be a key factor in enabling the organization’s objective to increase health literacy in underserved populations. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a culturally-appropriate, text-based, digital platform designed exclusively for Medicaid beneficiaries and underserved populations who have largely been omitted from digital health innovation. This project’s research objective is to examine the receptiveness of the underserved population to this method of health information delivery and healthcare navigation support. This study will explore patient engagement with a healthcare navigator using text messaging. The data will be analyzed for speech and content patterns needed to create an easily accessible artificial intelligence (AI) tool designed specifically for Medicaid and other patients from underserved communities. The data generated from this project will also be useful for researchers to refine methods to recruit underserved, black and Hispanic communities for clinical trials and public health research studies.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.