Northeastern University, Boston Medical Center, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have entered into a licensing agreement with Engineered Care, a San Francisco-area health care software company, to commercialize virtual nursing software developed by Timothy Bickmore, PhD, assistant professor in Northeastern’s College of Computer and Information Science. The software features a computer-animated nurse, “Louise,” who talks patients though the hospital discharge process and assesses their understanding of medical instructions. “Post-discharge self-care regimens are typically complex, with the average patient going away with 10 medications and multiple follow-up appointments,” Bickmore explains. “The discharge is even more hazardous for patients who have difficulty reading and following basic written medical instructions.” Nevertheless, the average pre-discharge conversation outlining care instructions lasts fewer than eight minutes.
Nearly 20% of discharged patients are readmitted within a month due to low health literacy and insufficient knowledge of self-care medical instructions, according to Brian Jack, MD, a physician at Boston Medical Center. Nearly 30% of these readmissions are preventable with a more complete reinforcement of discharge directions, Jack says. Reducing these preventable readmissions not only means healthier patients but also lower health care costs. “Louise” is Bickmore’s solution to these discharge issues. Using a touch screen, patients interact with Louise through an 11-step discharge process that takes an average of 52 minutes, at a pace that can be controlled by the patient. Louise asks about medication regimens and follow-up visits. She also tailors her facial expressions and responses to the patient based on input that patients provide to the discharge material. Louise also quizzes patients to assess their understanding of medical instructions.
In a pilot program at Boston Medical Center, nearly 450 patients used Louise, and the results were encouraging. “Patients in the trial group weren’t afraid to repeatedly ask Louise for instructions and didn’t feel rushed to move though the discharge process,” Bickmore says. Engineered Care has been granted exclusive rights to implement the patient discharge technology. The firm plans to market the product domestically and globally within the next three years.
Source: Northeastern University News