I suppose we could try for the first SBIR due in two weeks and if that fails we have more time to submit for the second one due in June. The RFP that I have begun to read is located here
2018.EDSBIR.PhaseI.FINAL.12.11.17 (1).docx (641.2 KB)
Issues:
We would have to show/prove that the end commercial product was better than the competition like e.g. Neehr Perfect
Is MI squared too small a company to compete?
Having exercises that are unique would be good. I’m not sure I understand @yehster’s comments about entering data, as most students created a new patient where they entered data. Instructors seemed to have run out of time and didn’t get to any of the more difficult exercises and some students struggled with just the scavenger hunt
Perhaps our unique premise would be that the EHR can be used for more than just EHR training. In other words, it can be used by clinical and non-clinical students for health science, coding, simple analytics and research
I think we would need to hold multiple teleconferences to pull this together
The meat of the proposal is included in the first 24 pages. The rest goes over contract details and what has to be included in the multiple appendices. Observations:
In terms of “grant matching,” this seems to be extremely relevant to what we would like to do with our project. Better than any other grant I have seen.
They do allow consultants (Kevin, me), universities and non-profits to be involved but the small business is in charge
Work must be completed in 8 months
Phase I is usually for alpha testing or proof of concept. We are beyond this so we would have to demonstrate why adding more features is important.
The principal investigator (PI) must be employed by the small business and 1/2 his/her time must be spent with them
The small business must perform at least 2/3 of the work
The proposal is only 15 pages so that is the easy part, the appendices would take more time
We would probably need another pilot test with good research measures to prove usability and improvement in knowledge
I would strongly urge @tony and @yehster to read the first 24 pages
I believe that this grant is very doable, but I doubt it can be done by January 25th
Look at EA2: “4) learning environments for emerging technologies in the biosciences, computer sciences, robotics, and programming. Highly innovative and technically advanced portable devices and related applications in learning analytics and adaptive learning that are substantially differentiated in the marketplace may be considered.”
I’ll read it tonight. In this case, I suspect that “learning environments” means Artificial Intelligence, not education, but I could be wrong. That terminology is used heavily in AI projects
I wondered why we had not heard back from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation so I emailed them again today. They responded by saying, “didn’t you get our letter of declination”? So, from my standpoint, we are back at square one. I have also not heard anything from Pearson Publishing so may try to contact them again, this time by phone
I have one more idea regarding funding. Blaine Takesue at Regenstrief gave me a contact at the AMA who helped fund his educational EHR project (don’t know the size of the grant). This contact (Kevin Keckman) is head of product development for medical education for AMA. Before I would attempt to ask for money, I think we need to strategize. Many medical students get access to an EHR when they become interns but before that most medical student don’t have access to an EHR.
Traditionally, we thought early exposure to an EHR was important so they could train on it before they become MDs. You could argue though, that an EHR could be used for medical education, analytics and research. If an EHR was populated with interesting cases, medical students (and nursing students) would be given exercises in pathophysiology, epidemiology, etc. By the same token, the EHR could be used for basic data analytics if you could download patient data. I won’t raise the issue again about embedding SQL tools into LibreHealth.
Before I go down the “rabbit hole” I wanted to run past several of you the notion that we might create a mini-course about the “many uses of an EHR” that might appeal to the AMA. A mini-course could be on Moodle or one of the more modern platforms. Thoughts?
This is the model that I have been talking about as the goal for the Educational EHR. I think it could also be extended in the long term to teach methods of using an EHR for telehealth (vidoe and audio) as well as cross peer consulting.
@rhoyt, I think the idea of medical cases is good, but IMHO, something like has a few alternatives already. Blaine’s teaching EMR is one example, but previously (which was recently closed I think) - the big proprietary EHR systems, also had similar hosted versions that could be used as teaching EHRs.
The true value and USP of LEEP can be its focus on informatics education. Being FOSS, it can let you see the internals. In addition, you can implement use-cases and workflows as you please… and probably even shareable for a price (in an appstore like model). I think that will be a real “rabbit hole”.