Summary

Summary

“A ‘digital bridge’ for clinicians and health consumers”

A team of GMU faculty and students, with Open Networks (ON), aims to improve interprofessional communication in primary care for chronic insomnia, via an ongoing course-based health communication campaign, ‘Share CBT-I‘.

Our team will adhere to the American College of Physicians 2016 Clinical Guideline for adult chronic insomnia assisting clinicians to strive for a 100% referral rate to CBT-I (the best non-drug treatment), via a shared digital bridge, the Insomnia Hub. As well, we aim to improve dissemination of CBT-I research (and where to find services) to health consumers.

Participating GMU courses:  COMM 391: Writing for PR (2015); COMM 620:  Health Communication (2016): and COMM 331: Advanced Principles of PR (2016)

Problem

Sleep deprivation is a public health epidemic, says the CDC. About 84 million sleep-deprived Americans are on the road and more than half of the 5,000 fatalities last year involved drowsy driving young adults. Yet, instead of referring to the best science-based treatment for sleep, primary care providers prescribe sleeping pills (60 million in 2011). As well, it’s not easy (for providers or the public) to find clinicians trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – Insomnia (CBT-I), the ‘best practice’ for insomnia.

Creating linkages between primary care practices and community resources has the potential to benefit both patients and clinicians and to lessen the burden on the U.S. healthcare system resulting from poor health behaviors. Infrastructure support and communication systems must be developed to foster sustainable linkages between practices and local resources.

Aim

The team will develop and test a new universal ‘digital bridge’ (Share CBT-I) by which any clinician can easily and effectively inform and refer health consumers to the most trusted CBT-I help. ‘Share CBT-I’ will combine (1) a brief online tutorial for how to conduct the referral, and (2) a curated and crowdsourced knowledge-sharing platform, provided by ON, enabling healthcare faculty and students (anywhere) to share what they know about CBT-I and where to find it – interprofessionally.

Fall 2016 Questions

1. What are the most effective types of communication to engage health consumers to use a CBT-I app?
2. How best to engage faculty/students to share what they know about CBT-I on the Hub? How best to engage health consumers to access CBT-I and the Insomnia Hub?  (e.g., social media campaign)?

Spring 2017 Question

1. Can a brief online tutorial enable a clinician to effectively refer people to CBT-I in Fairfax?

Potential student tasks 

I-  Clinical Psychology: Compose three (3) CBT-I app review posts and participate in the Insomnia Live broadcast (on campus) … fall 2016 semester

II-  Health Communication:  Test two approaches to convey health information: an app review post and/or a broadcast of clinicians reviewing an app) … fall 2016 semester and assist in evaluating the tutorial … Spring 2017 semester

III-  Advanced Public Relations: Using social media, promote the posts and broadcast to two (2) audiences:  (1) Fairfax area residents (who would access CPS sliding scale services), and (2) healthcare faculty/students who would ‘share what they know’ about CBT-I on the Insomnia Hub  …  fall 2016 semester

IV-  Nursing:  Participate in the test of the tutorial; evaluate outcomes … Spring 2017 semester

Clinical Psychology

Students will be supervised by Meredith Cary, PsyD under the aegis of Robyn Mehlenbeck, PhD Director, Center for Psychological Services (CPS)

Task #1:  SHUT-I app

1.     Complete the Hub post describing CPS services for insomnia.

2.     Publish his own student profile (in Hub Directory)

3.     Review SHUT-I (Try out the free demo version to experience it; review related studies) to publish the SHUT-I ‘review post’ and to ask questions of the SHUT-I developer (Frances Thorndike, PhD) during ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast

4.     Participate in ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast (in a studio on campus; likely in mid-October).

Task #2:  Sleepio app

1.     Comment on at least 1 of peer’s posts

2.     Publish his own student profile (in Hub Directory)

3.     Review Sleepio App (Try the free demo version to experience it; review related studies) to publish the Sleepio ‘review post’ and to ask questions (i.e., relative benefits of Sleepio vis-à-vis SHUT-I) during the ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast

4.     Participate in ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast (in a studio on campus; likely in mid-October)

Task #3:  CBT-I Coach app

1.     Comment on at least 1 of peer’s posts

2.     Publish his own student profile (in Hub Directory)

3.     Review CBT-I Coach App (use a free demo version to experience it; review related studies) to publish the CBT-I Coach ‘review post’ and to ask questions (i.e., relative benefits of CBT-I Coach vis-à-vis SHUT-I) during the ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast

4.     Participate in ‘Insomnia Live’ broadcast (in a studio on campus; likely in mid-October)

Health Communication

Students taking GMU Health Communication 620 with Professor Gary Kreps, PhD will be asked to test the most effective way(s) to engage health consumers to use a CBT-I App (i.e. to test two approaches to convey health information: an app review post and/or a broadcast of clinicians reviewing an app).

App review post:   Posts will be primarily composed by the clinical psychology students with faculty and other experts. An app post would have ‘interprofessional’ inputs from others such as, Behavioral Sleep Psychologists, Pharmacists, primary care providers, nurses, etc.

Broadcast:  Open Networks with Jim McLean and others will direct and produce the Insomnia Live broadcast (using Google Hangouts onAir) from a studio on campus. The program’s panel will consist of the Host and three GMU Psychology students. Remote participants will include an app developer (UVA researcher) and a Discussant (GMU clinical faculty). Panelists will discuss three apps for CBT-I, ask questions of the app developer, and the Discussant will synthesize what is learned from all at the end. Success would be that health consumers with sleep issues had enough sustained attention to the broadcast to understand the relative value of each CBT-I app. If possible, it would be nice to know if they felt that the ‘broadcast’ was more or less beneficial than simply reading the individual app review posts.

Public Relations

Students taking Advanced Principles of PR with Sergei A. Samoilenko will be asked to test several social media approaches to engage faculty and students in healthcare to share what they know about CBT-I on the Insomnia Hub as well as to attract Fairfax residents to Mason’s sliding scale CPS services (for CBT-I).