Sunday, September 30, 2012

CTA Launches Online Toolkit

The Center for Technology and Aging launched their online “ADOPT Toolkit©” and associated technical advisory and consulting services. The ADOPT Toolkit website includes free, practical “how to” resources to guide providers, ranging from hospitals and health systems to aging services organizations, through the often complex technology adoption maze which can involve planning and development to implementation and evaluation. ADOPT can be used by organizations to improve care or reduce re-hospitalizations for individuals with chronic conditions, such as heart disease or COPD.

“Accelerating diffusion of proven technologies such as ADOPT has been our mission since we started sponsoring technology demonstration grants several years ago,” said David Lindeman, PhD, Director of CTA. “We’re taking our expertise to the next level by offering consulting services to the broader healthcare community and therefore we created the online ADOPT Toolkit.”

“The website builds on CTA’s research and real-world experience and is designed for organizations committed to using technology to dramatically improve chronic disease management,” said Wendy Everett, President of NEHI, a national health policy Institute with expertise identifying barriers to adoption of technologies for patients with chronic illnesses.

The website will offer tools in four discreet technology areas such as remote patient monitoring, medication optimization, care transition, and mobile health. RPM tools are available online and tools for mobile health technologies will be available in November.

The toolkit templates and guides are organized into work streams that support both program sustainability and scalability to simplify the steps required to successfully deploy a technology such as program planning technology, patient management, clinical management, finance, administration, marketing, and evaluation, and performance improvement. A starter kit set of RPM tools, including an Organizational Readiness Assessment is available to organizations new to technology adoption.

A free one hour nationwide webinar is scheduled for October 17the, 10a.m PDT (1p.m EDT) to introduce healthcare provider and systems on how to use the new ADOPT Toolkit. To register, go to bit.ly/04o95X.

For more information, go to http://toolkit.techandaging.org.