IGF::OT::IGF: Phase I SBIR Contract - FY17 - Topic 363 - Connecting Cancer Caregivers to Care Teams: Digital Platforms to Support Informal Cancer Caregiving

Brightoutcome Inc., Buffalo Grove IL

Investigators

Abstract

The myCare2 solution will be marketed to cancer care organizations and include three separate portals for cancer caregivers, patients and providers. The system will be mobile-enabled and support standards-based EHR integration. Primary myCare2 features include symptom assessment, communication with the care team, care plan dissemination, tailored education content for caregiving and for caregiver self-care, and peer/community support. The demands of caring for a cancer patient at home often result in a failure to meet caregivers? personal and emotional needs and place caregivers at high risk of experiencing a wide array of physical, mental and social issues. Our overarching goal is to develop and evaluate myCare2, a dual-focused caregiver support system that addresses the caregiving needs as well as the personal needs of a caregiver. The myCare2 solution will be marketed to cancer care organizations and include three separate portals for cancer caregivers, patients and providers. The system will be mobile-enabled and support standards-based EHR integration. Primary myCare2 features include symptom assessment, communication with the care team, care plan dissemination, tailored education content for caregiving and for caregiver self-care, and peer/community support. Our Phase I specific objectives are: 1) conduct a competitive analysis of features provided by other commercial and academic caregiver support solutions; 2) collect feedback from stakeholders on system features, perceived usefulness and potential barriers via focus groups; 3) develop the myCare2 prototype with a user-centric design process leveraging our prior work; and 4) conduct usability tests with cancer patients, caregivers, and providers, which we expect to demonstrate the usability and usefulness of our prototype.