PA TH2Caregiving: Data-Driven Digital Engagement to Assess and Address the Needs of Family Caregivers

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Family caregivers are often required to provide post-discharge assistance to individuals with disabling conditions, resulting in strain and negative effects on the caregiver’s health and well-being. While assessing and addressing the needs of family caregivers has been identified as a priority area, there are no comprehensive programs designed to assess a family member’s readiness to provide post-discharge care and address unmet needs. PATH2Caregiving is a nurse-led comprehensive evidence-based transitional care program designed to bridge this gap by evaluating unmet caregiver needs and implementing interventions specifically tailored to address those needs. The program includes the Preparedness Assessment for the Transition Home (PATH)©, a validated, 25-item, self-report screening tool that assesses and prioritizes biopsychosocial and ecological risk factors for caregiving, and a corresponding Catalog of Caregiver Interventions© designed to minimize the adverse effects of caregiving post-discharge through education, skill building, support, and links to community resources. Implementing such a program may mitigate the adverse effects of caregiving by developing a personalized discharge and transition plan and optimized preparation for the transition home following discharge from an acute care hospital or inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF). The goal of this Phase I SBIR project is to translate the PATH2Caregiving Program© into a usable, acceptable and accessible mHealth platform for iOS, Android, and web-browsers. The project will involve the development and testing of a mobile application (app) with minimal features (i.e., a minimum viable product [MVP]) focused on user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).The app will be tested with caregivers and clinicians of patients being discharged from an IRF. In this Phase I project we will address the following Specific Aims (SA): SA1: Identify design features for the UI and UX, operationalization survey and algorithms, and develop the necessary backend architecture for the PATH2Caregiving platform. It will involve developing the storyboards and further refinement based upon quantitative and qualitative feedback through end-user focus groups on usability. SA 2: Develop and computationally test the PATH2Caregiving software platform for accuracy, validity, and solution reproducibility. SA 3: Conduct usability and acceptability testing of the MVP with a small group of end users, including family caregivers and clinicians, to evaluate UX through quantitative surveys that include ratings of the features, format, graphics, and ease of use; and qualitative interviews to assess accessibility, usability, usefulness, and likeability of platform features. The successful development of the PATH2Caregiving MVP will be the basis for Phase II of the project that will involve feasibility testing in real-world environments with partnerships in clinical sites, further refinement of the platform as needed, and development of interoperability features for integration into EHR systems.