Dr. Adrain Casillas of UCLA School of Medicine is the Principal Investigator on a project entitled Evaluating the Effectiveness of an eHealth Application to Improve Chronic Disease Management by Urban, Minority Children.

What is unique and/or innovative about your study?
Our approach is a technological one that is based on performance behavior as a method to assess comprehension as it is developing in young asthmatics learning to manage this chronic disease. It is not a replacement for the traditional didactic approach, but is an adjunct that provides a view of decision-making strategies that reflect the level of understanding and ability to relate to asthma episodes.

How is your project progressing so far?
The project is progressing as a series of class modules offered at various inner-city schools within the Hawthorne school district of Los Angeles. We have been successful in our scheduling of classes and the implementation as planned.

What prompted you to explore this research?
This is a natural extension of our prior work where the models of comprehension were established in childhood asthma. The framework for the current project results from the development of both a didactic and a computer-based problem solving assessment tool.

How would a typical end-user utilize the final product/results of your research?
The end user is left with a comprehensive review of his/her performance strategy and tutoring on how to improve that strategy. Furthermore, the web-based tools we have developed are available for personal review or for the establishment of more asthma-education modules, since the materials are online.

What are the greatest challenges in eHealth and more specifically, your project?
The greatest challenges have been class retention and accommodating the overwhelming schedules that schools are currently faced with. While our recruitment has been met with enthusiasm, the reality is that there are many competing activities for kids in after school programs. We had hoped to have over 75 to 100 students complete the modules, but we have been disappointed in the being able to retain roughly 50 students to date.

In what ways would you like to see eHealth evolve?
The key issues, I believe, are access to the technology and assessment of the impact it makes on the community. It will be crucial to couple projects with outcomes-related projects to really pursue this effectively. It would be a nice coupling of technology, assessment and outcomes.

How do you stay informed of advances and innovations in eHealth?
Mostly by online sources of information that have been passed onto me. Also there a number of societies that have emerged that serve to disseminate information in this area.

Adrian, thank you for your time.

In July, we’ll hear from Dr. Bryant Karras at the University of Washington.