Center for Technology and Aging - 2011 Top Ten

CTA’s Top Ten of 2011

Below are the 10 Center for Technology and Aging (CTA) articles, reports, presentations and program announcements that drew the most interest from our readers in 2011. The top 10 items cover a wide range of topics, from the Center’s grantees’ project outcomes, to advances in patient-centered technologies, to collaboration efforts between CTA and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Administration on Aging (AoA), to lessons learned and best practices on how to take patient-centered technology-enabled interventions to scale. Please browse the articles in the list below, read about forthcoming opportunity areas, and look for our reader survey in our upcoming newsletter to provide feedback to the Center on our dissemination efforts.

Two of the top 10 articles for 2011 presented project outcomes from completed CTA grant programs including Centura Health at Home and Connecticut Pharmacists Foundation. Both organizations reported positive outcomes and are continuing their efforts to take their programs to scale. As CTA grantees continue to report project outcomes, additional findings will be provided through reports, presentations and webinars. Upcoming project outcomes will highlight grantees from the Tech4Impact program as well as the Remote Patient Monitoring Program.

CTA’s collaboration with the ONC around Consumer eHealth and the AoA on Technologies to Improve Post-Acute Care Transitions (Tech4Impact) sparked much interest in 2011. CTA and ONC have convened a Consumer eHealth affinity group to facilitate communication on best practices for technology-enabled interventions, share lessons learned, and foster future collaborations. The group holds monthly webinars where CTA and ONC grantees share lessons learned on implementing consumer eHealth technology-enabled interventions. Several CTA grantees and Beacon Communities participated in an innovative event at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, where provider organizations had an opportunity to meet directly with technology innovators and technology companies through the ONC Beacon Communities Innovation Exchange session. The panel presentation on ‘Provider Implementation of Consumer eHealth Technology’ with Beacon Communities and CTA grantees continues to draw viewers. As 2012 progresses, CTA will be working with ONC to disseminate Consumer eHealth Affinity Group webinar presentations to a larger audience.

On a similar note, CTA’s collaboration with the U.S. Administration on Aging on Technologies to Improve Post-Acute Care Transitions (Tech4Impact) garnered much interest. CTA’s presentation at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) conference on the ‘Role of Technology in Care Transitions and Beyond’ discusses innovative strategies for spreading new technologies throughout organizations and communities. Two CTA Tech4Impact (Technologies for Improving Post-Acute Care Transitions) grantees highlighted opportunities and practical implications around care transitions.

CTA reports and issue briefs continue to maintain a steady interest post release. Two papers in particular, the mHealth Position Paper and Return on Investment (ROI) Issue Brief have claimed two spots on the top ten list. The mHealth Position Paper has gained increasing importance as we experience a rapid increase in the way mHealth/Connected Health programs are used by older adults, family caregivers, and the health care workforce. The ROI Issue Brief provides an overview of the process for determining the ROI of current or prospective technology-enabled programs to address chronic care. CTA, in collaboration with the Center for Connected Health, is developing a ROI tool to assist organizations determine the ROI of remote patient monitoring technologies, with the release scheduled for later in 2012.

The Center has also reported on grantees’ efforts to use multimedia to inform key stakeholders of the impact of their projects. Gaining the greatest attention was the mini-documentary created for the Connecticut Pharmacists Foundation, a Medication Optimization grantee, on their program that successfully utilizes videoconferencing to eliminate barriers to care for the Khmer populations in California and Massachusetts.

One of the presentations prepared by Catholic Healthcare West and HealthCare Partners, CTA grantees co-funded by The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation received special attention for their session at the AgeTech Annual Conference. The grantees highlighted their lessons learned and preliminary outcomes from their remote patient monitoring projects.

Announcements concerning CTA’s mHealth Grants Program received much attention from readers, specifically the mHealth Project Abstracts that describe the specific technology interventions of the five grantees, as well as project locations, collaborators, target populations, goals, and replication/sustainability plans.

In early 2011, CTA released the second of two issues of the journal Ageing International entitled “Technology Adoption and Diffusion for Older Adults,” guest edited by CTA staff. The articles in these issues explore how technology can improve the health and independence of older adults with an emphasis on the diffusion and scalability of technology. CTA spotlighted one article, an interview with Dr. Adam Darkins of the Veterans Health Administration (VA), where he discussed the critical factors important to the success of the VA’s Care Coordination/Home Telehealth (CC/HT) program and Vista Electronic Health Record as well as his view of the future of telehealth. The full article is available on CTA's website courtesy of Springer Publishing.

The links to the specific articles are presented below.

Position Paper - mHealth Technologies: Applications to Benefit Older Adults
March 2011

Project Outcomes - Centura Health at Home (CHAH), Completes CTA Grant Project with Positive Outcomes and Impacts Policy in Colorado
August 2011

Return on Investment Brief - Determining the ROI from Remote Patient Monitoring - A Primer
October 2011

Project Outcomes - Connecticut Pharmacists Foundation’s Medication Optimization Project Demonstrates Significant Patient Outcomes and Return on Investment
October 2011

Health 2.0 CTA-Beacon Innovation Exchange Presentation: Provider Implementation of Consumer eHealth Technology
September 2011

CTA Presentation at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) Annual Conference: The Role of Technology in Care Transitions and Beyond
July 2011

Abstracts of CTA mHealth Grantees
July 2011

CTA Grantee Mini Documentary - Connecticut Pharmacists Foundation MedOp Project
October 2011

CTA Presentation at the AgeTech Conference - Implementing Patient-Centered Technology Interventions for Older Adults: Lessons Learned
November 2011

Ageing International Article - Lessons from a Leader in Telehealth Diffusion: Interview with Dr. Adam Darkins of the Veterans Health Administration
January 2011

By David Lindeman

This is a great year-end summary from our friends at the Center for Aging and Technology. TSH Editor BB