CLEVELAND – A group from Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University is developing virtual technology designed to help young adults with mental illnesses better manage their care.

Melissa Pinto-Foltz, a postdoctoral scholar and instructor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at CWRU, saw the potential of a computer program called Electronic Self-Management Resource Training to Reduce Health Disparities (e-SMART-HD) to work for mental health (eSMART-MH). The e-SMART-HD technology simulates patient-provider dialogues, creating a virtual world that can teach patients how to interact with virtual healthcare providers.

Pinto-Foltz's SMART-MH project is being funded by a one-year, $7,500 grant from the American Nurses Foundation and the Midwest Nursing Research Society.

"Young adults accept technology as part of their lives and are comfortable interacting with it. This project seemed like a natural extension of what they are already doing every day," Pinto-Foltz said.

The next step in developing eSMART-MH involves Pinto-Foltz and her team examining the acceptability of eSMART-MH with a small number of young adults who are 18-25 years of age. From this data, the eSMART-MH may be tweaked.

The team will then recruit 40 participants newly diagnosed with depression or anxiety from area health organizations and a college campus to assess the effectiveness of the e-SMART-MH. Half the group will be randomly assigned to use e-SMART-MH, and the other half will be given more standard interventions of screen information from videos and mental health literature.

"Our goal is to teach young adults how to interact with their healthcare providers to get what they need to manage mental illness," said Pinto-Foltz.

The e-SMART-HD technology is currently involved in a two-year project funded by the National Institute for Health. The project, which began last November,  is being led by John Clochesy, the Independence Foundation professor at the nursing school, who developed the technology. He is working with Mt. Sinai Skills and Simulation Center and Beachwood-based software company, LogicJunction, to develop technologies with avatar doctors similar to the ones found in computer games to help patients hone their communications skills.

"At the end of using e-SMART-HD, we hope to have evidence that patient communication has improved with healthcare workers by interacting with this technology, and that it makes a difference in their health," said Clochesy.

The avatars will be used as virtual healthcare providers and mimic the facial expressions, language, and gestures common to real providers. The technology guides the patient through interactions with virtual providers, and whenever the communication hits a rough spot, virtual coaches pop up to guide the patient.

Edward Wagner, LogicJunction's director of sales, says, "Different patient profiles can be created to emulate the human experience. These avatars are highly realistic with speech, animation, emotion and artificial intelligence."

Both projects are part of the research program at the National Institute of Nursing Research/National Institute of Health-funded SMART Center in the nursing school to find ways to help individuals manage their chronic illnesses.