Integrating Addiction Treatment into Primary Care Using Mobile Health Technology: Protocol for an Implementation Research Study

Healthcare reform in the United States is encouraging Federally Qualified Health Centers and other primary-care practices to integrate treatment for addiction and other behavioral health conditions into their practices. The potential of mobile health technologies to manage addiction and comorbidities such as HIV in these settings is substantial but largely untested. This paper describes a protocol to evaluate the implementation of an E-Health integrated communication technology delivered via mobile phones, called Seva, into primary-care settings. Seva is an evidence-based system of addiction treatment and recovery support for patients and real-time caseload monitoring for clinicians

We Could, but Should We? Ethical Considerations for Providing Access to GeoCities and Other Historical Digital Collections

We live in an era in which the ways that we can make sense of our past are evolving as more artifacts from that past become digital. At the same time, the responsibilities of traditional gatekeepers who have negotiated the ethics of historical data collection and use, such as librarians and archivists, are increasingly being sidelined by the system builders who decide whether and how to provide access to historical digital collections, often without sufficient reflection on the ethical issues at hand. It is our aim to better prepare system builders to grapple with these issues. This paper focuses discussions around one such digital collection from the dawn of the web, asking what sorts of analyses can and should be conducted on archival copies of the GeoCities web hosting platform that dates to 1994.This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the US National Science Foundation (grants 1618695 and 1704369), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Start Smart Labs, and Compute Canada

Center-surround vs. distance-independent lateral connectivity in the olfactory bulb

Lateral neuronal interactions are known to play important roles in sensory information processing. A center-on surround-off local circuit arrangement has been shown to play a role in mediating contrast enhancement in the visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems. The lateral connectivity and the influence of those connections have been less clear for the olfactory system. A critical question is whether the synaptic connections between the primary projection neurons, mitral and tufted (M/T) cells, and their main inhibitory interneurons, the granule cells (GCs), can support a center-surround motif. Here, we study this question by injecting a “center” in the glomerular layer of the olfactory bulb (OB) with a marker of synaptic connectivity, the pseudorabies virus (PRV), then examines the distribution of labeling in the “surround” of GCs. We use a novel method to score the degree to which the data fits a center-surround model vs. distance-independent connectivity. Data from 22 injections show that M/T cells generally form lateral connections with GCs in patterns that lie between the two extremes

Implementing an mHealth System for Substance Use Disorders in Primary Care: A Mixed Methods Study of Clinicians’ Initial Expectations and First Year Experiences

Millions of Americans need but don’t receive treatment for substance use, and evidence suggests that addiction-focused interventions on smart phones could support their recovery. There is little research on implementation of addiction-related interventions in primary care, particularly in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that provide primary care to underserved populations. We used mixed methods to examine three FQHCs’ implementation of Seva, a smart-phone app that offers patients online support/discussion, health-tracking, and tools for coping with cravings, and offers clinicians information about patients’ health tracking and relapses. We examined (a) clinicians\u27 initial perspectives about implementing Seva, and (b) the first year of implementation at Site 1

Implementing a Mobile Health System to Integrate the Treatment of Addiction Into Primary Care: A Hybrid Implementation-Effectiveness Study

Background: Despite the near ubiquity of mobile phones, little research has been conducted on the implementation of mobile health (mHealth) apps to treat patients in primary care. Although primary care clinicians routinely treat chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes, they rarely treat addiction, a common chronic condition. Instead, addiction is most often treated in the US health care system, if it is treated at all, in a separate behavioral health system. mHealth could help integrate addiction treatment in primary care. Objective: The objective of this paper was to report the effects of implementing an mHealth system for addiction in primary care on both patients and clinicians. Methods: In this implementation research trial, an evidence-based mHealth system named Seva was introduced sequentially over 36 months to a maximum of 100 patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) in each of three federally qualified health centers (FQHCs; primary care clinics that serve patients regardless of their ability to pay). This paper reports on patient and clinician outcomes organized according to the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Results: The outcomes according to the RE-AIM framework are as follows: Reach—Seva reached 8.31% (268/3226) of appropriate patients. Reach was limited by our ability to pay for phones and data plans for a maximum of 100 patients per clinic. Effectiveness—Patients who were given Seva had significant improvements in their risky drinking days (44% reduction, (0.7-1.25)/1.25, P=.04), illicit drug-use days (34% reduction, (2.14-3.22)/3.22, P=.01), quality of life, human immunodeficiency virus screening rates, and number of hospitalizations. Through Seva, patients also provided peer support to one another in ways that are novel in primary care settings. Adoption—Patients sustained high levels of Seva use—between 53% and 60% of the patients at the 3 sites accessed Seva during the last week of the 12-month implementation period. Among clinicians, use of the technology was less robust than use by patients, with only a handful of clinicians using Seva in each clinic and behavioral health providers making most referrals to Seva in 2 of the 3 clinics. Implementation—At 2 sites, implementation plans were realized successfully; they were delayed in the third. Maintenance—Use of Seva dropped when grant funding stopped paying for the mobile phones and data plans. Two of the 3 clinics wanted to maintain the use of Seva, but they struggled to find funding to support this. Conclusions: Implementing an mHealth system can improve care among primary care patients with SUDs, and patients using the system can support one another in their recovery. Among clinicians, however, implementation requires figuring out how information from the mHealth system will be used and making mHealth data available in the electronic health (eHealth) record. In addition, paying for an mHealth system remains a challenge

Reducing Symptom Distress in Patients with Advanced Cancer Using an e-Alert System for Caregivers: Pooled Analysis of Two Randomized Clinical Trials

Background: Symptom distress in patients toward the end of life can change rapidly. Family caregivers have the potential to help patients manage those symptoms, as well as their own stress, if they are equipped with the proper resources. Electronic health (eHealth) systems may be able to provide those resources. Very sick patients may not be able to use such systems themselves to report their symptoms but family caregivers could. Objective: The aim of this paper was to assess the effects on cancer patient symptom distress of an eHealth system that alerts clinicians to significant changes in the patient’s symptoms, as reported by a family caregiver. Methods: A pooled analysis from two randomized clinical trials (NCT00214162 and NCT00365963) compared outcomes at 12 months for two unblinded groups: a control group (Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System [CHESS]-Only) that gave caregivers access to CHESS, an online support system, and an experimental group (CHESS+CR [Clinician Report]), which also had CHESS but with a CR that automatically alerted clinicians if symptoms exceeded a predetermined threshold of severity. Participants were dyads (n=235) of patients with advanced lung, breast, or prostate cancer and their respective family caregivers from 5 oncology clinics in the United States of America. The proportion of improved patient threshold symptoms was compared between groups using area-under-the-curve analysis and binomial proportion tests. The proportion of threshold symptoms out of all reported symptoms was also examined. Results: When severe caregiver-reported symptoms were shared with clinicians, the symptoms were more likely to be subsequently reported as improved than when the symptoms were not shared with clinicians (P \u3c .001). Fewer symptom reports were completed in the group of caregivers whose reports went to clinicians than in the CHESS-Only group (P \u3c .001), perhaps because caregivers, knowing their reports might be sent to a doctor, feared they might be bothering the clinician. Conclusions: This study suggests that an eHealth system designed for caregivers that alerts clinicians to worrisome changes in patient health status may lead to reduced patient distress. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00214162; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00214162 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6nmgdGfuD) and Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00365963; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00365963 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6nmh0U8VP

The effect of bundling medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction with mHealth: study protocol for a randomized clinical trial

Completed SPIRIT figure. (PDF 103 kb

Communicating about self and others within an online support group for women with breast cancer and subsequent outcomes

Abstract Research suggests communicating too much about one's self within an online support group may amplify breast cancer patients' focus on their own problems and exacerbate negative emotions while focusing on others may have the opposite effects. This study explored how pronoun usage within an online support group was associated with subsequent mental health outcomes. There were 286 patients recruited into the study who filled out the pre-test and 231 completed post-tests four months later with survey measures including breast cancer-related concerns and negative emotions. Messages were analyzed using a program counting first person and relational pronouns. A positive relationship was found between use of first person pronouns and negative emotions