SBIR-STTR Award

For the families of 1.6 million Americans residing in nursing homes, remaining constructively involved in the care of the resident is a challenge and major stressor. Conflicts between the facilities and families are common and interfere with the ideal goal of "partners in care," in which professionals and families work together towards optimizing resident outcomes. In order to achieve this goal, a core curriculum of education for both families and nursing home staff on clinical issues and communication skills is essential. This SBIR proposal is to develop an Internet-based interactive video system to deliver education to the families of long-term care residents. The Phase I prototype will focus on providing dementia education for families; and assess knowledge attained and user satisfaction. For Phase II we will develop and test a comprehensive curriculum for families on common clinical conditions, legal/regulatory issues, participation in care, and communication skills. The Phase II study will compare the impact of family and staff education, together; staff education, alone; family education, alone; and standard educational conditions in terms of objective measures of resident outcomes, staff turnover, and staff and family satisfaction. For staff education, we will use the curriculum of computer-based interactive video we have already developed with previous NIA funds. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Billions of dollars in pharmaceutical, skin care, and other products are marketed to nursing home annually. These companies would be interested in sponsoring this Web-site to promote their products to the consumers (family members) of long-term care. Nursing home chains may also be interested in providing eduction to residents' families to improve "customer satisfaction".

For the families of nursing homes residents, remaining constructively involved in the care of the resident is a challenge. Family access to clinical and administrative information is essential to effectively participate with care, yet it is usually not available, or is inadequate. Channels of communication between families and facility caregivers are poorly defined. The proposed Phase Il study will complete a curriculum of clinical, administrative, and legal education for families of nursing home residents in an interactive video format accessible through the Web. It will include a "family orientation" for newly admitted residents, and in addition, a facility-specific "Family Communication Room" will enable families and staff to communicate directly on an ongoing basis. A 12-month randomized trial with four facilities will assess family satisfaction, involvement and complaints as well as resident quality of care and quality of life. The Phase I study successfully completed all stated objectives. Approximately 45-minutes of interactive-video family education on dementia was created in conjunction with family advisors. Eighteen family members who completed the program showed enhanced knowledge on pre-post tests (t = 5.9, p<0.0001) and reported high levels of satisfaction. The Phase I family advisors were essential to the development of this Phase II proposal. Building on the successful commercialization of a previous product for nursing home staff education, there is a well-defined commercialization plan. Discussions have begun to market this product with a major insurance underwriter servicing the Iong-term care industry.

Thesaurus Terms:
Internet, computer assisted instruction, educational resource design /development, extended care, family structure /dynamics, health education, interactive multimedia, nursing home caregiver, communication, computer human interaction, dementia, geriatric medicine, health related legal, patient care personnel relations clinical research, human subject, statistics /biometry