BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - November 17, 2015) - Wellframe, a Boston-based company that enables health plans and providers to better manage risk and amplify existing support resources, announced today that the organization has partnered with Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging to use mobile technology to study Dartmouth's Integrated Behavioral Health Program with older adults with serious mental illness.
Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging, Dr. Karen Whiteman is leading this research with her mentor, Dr. Stephen Bartels, to examine the use of mobile technology to empower older adults with serious mental illness to self-manage medical condition and psychiatric symptoms outside of the hospital setting.
Dartmouth's Integrated Illness Management and Recovery (I-IMR) program developed by Dr. Stephen Bartels and his Dartmouth research group will be delivered through Wellframe's proprietary Intelligent Care Management Platform. I-IMR combines physical and behavioral health self-management training that will be dynamically delivered through an easy-to-follow daily health checklist, which is sent directly to the participants' mobile phone. Participants will receive reminders about their daily health tasks and can measure their own progress, including medication adherence and physical activity, while also viewing educational content. Through the Clinician Dashboard, Dartmouth's medical team can view their participants' progress in real-time, and send personalized messages of encouragement or instructions as needed.
"This project is focused on the very special population of middle-aged and older individuals who are at high risk of early mortality due to the combined challenges of having a major psychiatric condition such as schizophrenia combined with a major health condition such as diabetes or heart disease. We hope to demonstrate that this program using mobile technology can result in improved self-management among individuals with serious psychiatric and physical conditions," said Stephen J. Bartels, MD, MS, Professor and the Director of Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging.
"Dartmouth is not only pioneering a new approach to integrated behavioral and physical health, but by utilizing mobile technology, they are also pioneering a new approach to care delivery," said Wellframe CEO Jacob Sattelmair. "Mobile holds the promise to make vital programs like this more accessible to those who need it. We're very excited to have the opportunity to work with Dartmouth to make this a reality."
About Wellframe
Wellframe is a Boston-based Health Technology company that delivers a mobile-enabled care management platform. Wellframe partners with leading health plans, providers and other healthcare stakeholders to extend the reach of care management services to support patients toward improved experience, care plan adherence and health outcomes. Wellframe's team is comprised of world-class engineers, data scientists and clinicians focused on reorganizing healthcare resources around needs of patients. For more information on Wellframe, visit http://wellframe.com.
About Dartmouth
The Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging aims to improve the quality of life for northern New England's more than 350,000 older adults, by fostering research, education and interdisciplinary collaboration. The Center serves as a catalyst for the continuing improvement of the care of older adults. The Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging is one of the sites of the multi-site T32 Post-Doctoral Fellowship program in geriatric mental health services research. The program's goal is to grow the field of early-career research scientists focusing on geriatric mental health services through a proven, innovative, transdisciplinary, multi-site, training collaboratory.
For more information on the T32 Post-doctoral Fellowship, visit https://mentalhealthtrainingnetwork.org/institutes/t32/home
For more information on the Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging, visit http://tdi.dartmouth.edu/research/intervention/aging-resource-center
Contact Information:
Shelley Harrison
Director of Marketing and Communications
Wellframe
shelley@wellframe.com
781.467.9596