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We love research. We love figuring out what’s going on and what the effects are of doing something. And we love to have studies published in peer reviewed journals. But that’s not our sweet spot. Our sweet spot is the more mundane world of business decisions for service providers and payers, always with the effect on individuals and communities at the fore. We conduct both basic and applied research to better understand the role technology can play to improve outcomes, lower cost, and increase satisfaction of all stakeholders. Much of our work looks at how technology can be used to extend evidence based practice across the continuum of care.
Much of our basic or foundational research is conducted through our affiliation with Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI)’ via the School of Information’s Graduate Health Informatics program, under the direction of Dr. Josette Jones. For the past 10 years, Doug Dormer, our founder and CEO, has served as mentor and guest lecturer. Every fall and winter semester, Doug leads teams of typically 4 to 6 Masters and PhD students to explore basic foundational research questions. Often these projects follow the Care Unit Method, with the resulting report referred to as a “Care Unit Analysis.” Examples include the Palliative Health Care Unit Analysis, the Traumatic Brain Injury Care Unit Analysis, and the Pain Management Care Unit Analysis. Still other research projects have consisted of rapid literature reviews, such as to understand what past studies say about how the Recovery Oriented System of Care evidence-based practice is applied to the treatment of substance use disorder, and still other studies focus on either secondary analysis of available survey data, such as a study titled “Measuring the Association Between Food/Housing Insecurity and Health Status: An Analysis using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” or original research such as “A Survey of Evidence-based Practices and Technology Use in Permanent Supportive Housing Programs. These projects provide a broad foundation for design of technology requirements and to support applied research.
In one project, our team shadowed recovery coaches and documented bottlenecks and opportunities to improve engagement and workflow through technology. Our work contributed to a successful grant application for funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In another instance, we conducted staff interviews, focus group meetings and surveys of providers and customers crossing physical health, behavioral health, social services and criminal justice for a 16 rural counties. Most of this research comprises more of a “tool box” than a publishable report that our clients use for a wide range of purposes.
Most of our applied research is performed on behalf of a specific client or community. For one client, we analyzed the results of using our platform in a continuum of care that included substance use disorder, employment services, our eHealth Coach module and offender re-entry. The results showed a significant reduction in the rate of relapse, improved operating efficiency and a decrease in the rate of recidivism. Most of our work in this area belongs to our clients, and therefore is not available for publication here.
On the pages under this Research tab are the executive summaries for several of our research papers and our Care Unit Analyses. At the end of each research paper is a form where you can make comments, ask questions or request the full paper. Care Unit Analyses are generally limited to the executive summary, however the full care unit analyses will be presented through the Community Forum in the near future.
