Northeastern Center for Technology in Support of Self Management and Health



 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our nation is experiencing unprecedented demographic changes with the aging of the population. Older adults often struggle to maintain quality of life and independence in the presence of chronic diseases and prevailing illness; for low income elders with limited access to a resource-rich, supportive environment, these challenges are even more profound. Self-care/self-management behaviors are extremely important in the older adult population to increase quality of life and general health. The overall goal of our proposed Northeastern Center for Technology in Support of Self-Management and Health (NCTecH) is to develop nursing research expertise and effective interventions in the area of self- management for older adults at risk for poor health outcomes. We plan to support this mission by creating infrastructure support for the use of state-of-the-art technology to facilitate the timeliness, scalability and effectiveness of self-management interventions. Additionally, we have created an infrastructure that supports just-in-time training for nurse scientists as they progress through a project's life-cycle, with mentoring and coordinated services in the areas of experimental design, technology selection / development, data collection / storage / security, human subjects assurance, interface design / usability testing, and analysis methods. To achieve this goal, our specific aims are to: (1) Promote high quality nursing research in self-management, community-based participatory design, technologies for home monitoring and coaching, and team-based care that includes families and informal caregivers. (2) Develop an infrastructure to support nurse scientists with access to state-of-the-art monitoring and communications technologies, as well as database support, assurance of privacy and security of research data, and software engineering support for implementing novel self-management interventions. (3) Build interdisciplinary research teams to address nursing research questions with sustained collaborative relationships, including links to the community and patient groups. (4) Provide mentoring and just-in-time training throughout the nurse scientist's research project. NCTecH infrastructure will include three cores: Administrative, Technology and Assessment, and Pilot Research Projects; a Community and Scientific Advisory Boards, and an Executive Committee. Two pilot projects will address health care transitions, coaching and patient activation using innovative technologies to support self-management. NCTecH is grounded on multi/transdisciplinary research principles that acknowledge that health disparities in the United States are a complex problem that requires a shared understanding and novel promising solutions for vulnerable older adults to age successfully in their homes and own communities.