Research

HealthSenseLogo Health Sense
Health Sense, is a system of plug-and-play wellness monitoring, wearable components for children that are easy to build and program. Innovations in health informatics include the design of a new health sensing system that integrates seamlessly into a person’s life by unobtrusively monitoring and presenting health information – akin to a sixth, health sense. The proposed research extends work in wearable computing and associated interaction paradigms for children. This research comes at a critical time as childhood obesity rates continue to rise and put future generations at-risk for life threatening chronic conditions. Thus, providing children the ability to reflect on their health by crafting their own personalized, monitoring system, empowers them to consider preventative health measures (take the stairs to make a brooch light up) instead of specific treatments (walk for 30 minutes).
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health bridge logo Health Bridge
Health Bridge is an envisioned system that encourages the use of Personal Health Records (PHRs) by providing interoperable assistive tools to help low-socioeconomic families manage their health. Although there are many PHRs available today, not many people use them because it is unclear what are the motivations for continued use. Low socioeconomic individuals could benefit from PHRs because they could efficiently share health information with the multitude of healthcare professionals they see. In our previous research, we found that low socioeconomic caregivers receive a lot of health promotion literature, but are unsure how to apply the information to their own culturally influenced lives. Health Bridge will provide families a way to input nutritional information into a PHR and receive personalized feedback on what they are consuming and how they can integrate healthier, culturally sensitive options into their diets.
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Collaborators: The Bridge Project, University of Denver
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TIDELogo TIDE
The American College Health Association estimates that nearly half of college students suffer or have suffered from clinical depression. Most colleges and universities have mental healthcare infrastructure, the frontline of depression treatment, including counseling resources, psychiatrists, and social workers, but penetration of care and awareness is low.   One significant barrier to providing care is lack of public awareness of the symptoms, treatment, and etiology of depression (Patel, Branch, Mottur-Pilson, & Pinard, 2004).  One possible time efficient solution is using electronic methods of depression self-detection. Literature indicates that electronic self-tests that are conducted over the Internet are as accurate as traditional paper and pencil tests commonly used by clinicians (Proudfoot, Parker, Pavlovic, Manicavasagar, Alder, & Whitton, 2010). This CREU project, the Development of a Text Inventory for Depression (TIDE) in Educational Environments, will build on the use of interactive SMS systems to improve depression screening and disseminating relevant educational materials for college students. We will use the PHQ2 depression inventory, a self-administered tool for detecting depression.
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Students:
  • Sara Zhang
  • Erin Leonhard
Faculty Advisors: 

MITE-Logo-Final MITE
Effective communication and support of expecting and recent mothers is a central, but very difficult, component of successful public health interventions for improving maternal and child health.  It is particularly difficult among rural and resource restricted communities, like those in South Central Indiana. Furthermore, this resource restricted population, both in terms of income and of social support, is the most vulnerable to maternal complications and infant death within the first year. Text based messaging interventions aimed at improving maternal and child health are generally centered on prenatal behaviors (Tamrat & Kachnowski, 2012) and are also a mostly one-size-fits-all approach which lacks the adequate tailoring of health messages which is necessary to make them effective agents of support (Rotheram-Borus, Tomlinson, Swendeman, Lee, & Jones, 2012). Therefore, there is a critical need to provide socially and culturally adequate messages, especially extending into the postpartum period. Additionally, the specific needs and desires for this type of communication among mothers from resource restricted communities in the South Central Indiana have not been assessed. The Mothers’ Information Technology for Education (MITE) project will provide an initial evaluation of needs and desires of expecting and recent mothers from resource restricted communities, with the goal of designing a mobile technology application which will provide supportive and effective messages to improve their health and that of their infant child.
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  • Indiana University CORE PHIT Initative
Researchers:
  • Lucia Guerra-Reyes, Ph.D., Public Health
  • Katie A. Siek, Ph.D., Informatics
  • Asia Harris, B.S., Public Health
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 ecsite icon Project eCSite Health
Health classrooms are ideal places to introduce health technology and computational thinking because these classrooms establish a foundation for student’s perceptions and choices in health. We are working to integrate computer science concepts into the curriculum that K-12 health teachers are already using in the classroom. We are focusing on the topics of nutrition, sexual health, and information seeking. The new lessons we develop will be available on the Project eCSite health webpage.
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  • National Science Foundation (Award # DGE-0841423.)
Collaborators:
  • Nikki Dashiell, Health Teacher Fairview High School
  • Tom Kummer, Health Teacher Boulder High School

  Visualizing Physical Therapy with Electroluminescence Wire
Physical therapists have limited ways of assessing whether patients are undergoing treatment regularly and correctly. Likewise, patients undergoing physical therapy have limited ability to assess the accuracy of their exercises. We are developing a wearable electronic device that will provide an indication of rehabilitation progress and accuracy through an ambient visual display (EL wire) to remedy these problems. Therapy patients will be able to visualize their exercises and therapists can monitor the accuracy and regularity of their patients’ home exercise programs. This feedback loop can lead to patients that are more likely to adhere to the treatment plan thereby facilitating recovery.
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Collaborators: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center


wemr logo Wardenburg EMR Project
The Wardenburg EMR Project was initiated with the goal of improving the usability and deployment strategy involving the electronic medical record system used at the Wardenburg Health Center. Stemming from this original intention, we are hoping to explore problems in the family practice and clinic design space. A majority of research conducted regarding electronic medical records has been conducted in large healthcare settings such as hospitals. This small setting provides the ideal settings for deploying changes and observing their impact.
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Collaborators:
  • Edna Kinzley, Systems Training Coordinator at Wardenburg Health Center
  • Barbara Brandt, Nurse Practitioner at Wardenburg Health Center
  • Wardenburg Health Center

Past Research


health at you logo #Health@You
#Health@You supports communication between teens and parents, allows management of users’ illness symptoms, and provides mechanisms for constant reflection through active user participation. We use glanceable, text-based displays (e.g., : D for carbohydrates or bg for blood glucose) that utilize properties of social networking for fast and simple communication. In addition, these text-based displays can be easily parsed for quick updates to a Personal Health Record (PHR) that will provide users with the ability to engage in long-term reflection.  The PHR also facilitates better communication with providers. Our system provides users with increased health expert-informed, just-in-time feedback on their disease and the ability to reflect on teen-parent dyad communication patterns.
Funding: CU Innovative Seed Grant
Collaborators: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, College of Nursing

care tablet logo Colorado Care Tablet
Colorado Care Tablet (CO Care Tablet) is a Personal Health Record (PHR) Tablet PC application that helps older adults during transitions of care coordinate their care among multiple providers and caregivers and learn about the medication they are consuming. Medication errors are prevalent among older adults who are in transition between the hospital, home, or assisted living community. Co Care Tablet empowers older adults to learn about what medications to take when and care providers to understand all medications an older adult consumes.
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Collaborators: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

wio logo Walk It Out
This ongoing project explores developing a technology-based intervention to help change sedentary behavior in inactive adults. Modifying sedentary lifestyles has become a priority in many fields, as inactivity has been causally linked to many of the most common health conditions in America. Previous studies using technology-based activity motivation techniques have shown positive results, but further research is needed to look at the effectiveness of such interventions in different populations and settings. This study, while highly interdisciplinary, largely used concepts from persuasive technology, technology designed to promote behavior and attitude change. We followed a user-centered design process to develop a technology system for underserved populations most at-risk for sedentary behavior. The system has three interactive components designed using ideas from wearable and ambient technology, mobile development, and social networking. We will conduct a user needs analysis, gather reaction and feedback to the prototype design, and test using a real world evaluation of the prototype to tailor the system to the target population.
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Acknowledgements: Nwanua Elumeze and Aniomagic

avalon logo Avalon
Avalon is an open-source, publicly available Internet searching application to assist older adults effectively search the Internet for information. Older adults sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of information a simple search phrase produces on one screen (e.g., Google or Yahoo search results). In addition, once they select a website search result, they are not sure how to get back to the search engine website to modify their search phrase. These difficulties can be mostly attributed to cognitive declines of the aging population. We are looking at various ways to present information and navigate an Internet search application with reduced cognitive load. We believe that empowering such a large part of the global population to use the Internet will assist them to maintain social connectedness and increase knowledge for years to come.
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dima logo Dietary Intake Monitoring Application (DIMA)
The Dietary Intake Monitoring Application (DIMA) is a PDA application to assists end-state renal disease patients monitor their fluid and sodium intake. End-stage renal disease patients can only consume one liter of fluid and a couple of grams of sodium each day. Failure to comply can lead to severe health complications or death. DIMA will allow patients to quickly input food they consume via a barcode scanner or interface that does not require the ability to read or write and receive immediate feedback on their nutritional intake levels.
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