Paulina Sockolow, DrPH's research focuses on informatics evaluation in home care, a setting that provides health care to medically underserved populations, to identify HIT implementation barriers and success factors. She has been awarded recent R21 and current R01 grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Her survey instrument, the Electronic Health Record Nurse Satisfaction (EHRNS) has been added to the AHRQ HIT Library Survey Compendium. Sockolow has also conducted research in cross-national comparisons of electronic health record systems and in consumers’ use of mobile health information technology to reduce health disparities.
Principal Investigator
Paulina Sockolow, DrPH, MS, MBA
Associate Professor - Health Sciences
Phone: 267.359.5520
Email: pss44@drexel.edu
Information Needs of Homecare Nurses During Admission and Care Planning, R01 HS024537. 4/2016-3/2019
The demand for home health care is growing for a variety of reasons, including an aging population, lengthening life expectancy, increases in those that have multiple chronic diseases and a desire by individuals and their families to remain in their homes. Over 11 million older adults per year are admitted to homecare. These admissions can be challenging because of the absence of, or limits to, electronic information flow between hospitals and homecare agencies resulting in incomplete or inaccurate patient information. Health information technology (IT) can play an important role in supporting the timely and efficient collection, transmission, and synthesis of information needed for decision making during these transitions of care. However, homecare agencies have been slow to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) and mobile technology. In addition, there has been an absence of the use of standardized documents for the electronic recording of health information and a lack of clinical standards for the information received by homecare agencies.
This project will analyze and model the information requirements, decision making, and workflow of homecare nurses admitting patients and characterize if and how health IT systems support their needs. The analysis will lead to the development, review and dissemination of design and implementation recommendations. Outcomes of the study will include the following: (1) information requirements for homecare admitting nurses, (2) models of workflow and decision making in the homecare admission process and (3) dissemination of health IT design recommendations that efficiently fulfill information needs and support clinical decision making during the homecare admission process. This study will inform improvements in real world homecare health IT systems that may ultimately reduce unplanned hospitalization readmission events. Study findings also will inform future health IT interventions related to transitions in care to and from homecare, such as Meaningful Use and clinical information exchange standards.
Trauma-informed Gaming to Improve Risky Decision Making in Black Adolescents
The purpose of this grant proposal is to build on and expand our “proof of concept” story-based mobile health game and to assess the game’s feasibility. The game is intended for low income minority adolescent girls from a community with elevated rates of sexually transmitted infection and psychological trauma, as they tend to be susceptible to risky decision making. The game will help the player build skills related to making themselves safe while confronting risky decisions. During the two-year study with participants from the intended audience, we will: use an iterative assessment methodology to develop the game; perform an open pilot trial of five cases; and conduct a small pilot randomized study to assess the game’s feasibility. Development methods include partnering with a community site and employing a user-centered approach. Assessment methods include: (1) socio-behavioral assessment instruments; (2) user-satisfaction interviews; (3) logfile analysis to assess game branching logic, game completion and game repetition frequency; and (4) an internet survey about the game’s impact on the player’s every-day life.
Post-Doc/Staff
- Yushi Yang, PhD, Post Doctoral Fellow, expertise in Human Factors research
- Sheryl Potashnik, PhD, project manager and analyst
Internal Collaborators
External Collaborators