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KB and HPC International Launch Pinpoint

KB and HPC International Launch Pinpoint

Klein Buendel has partnered with HPC International, a leading purchased services provider for healthcare, corporations and academic institutions, to create Pinpoint™, the first-of-its-kind sickle cell pain management app, which provides a safe, interactive, and convenient way for patients to learn about, track, assess, and communicate with their doctors about their sickle cell pain.

The Pinpoint sickle cell pain management app provides a safe, interactive, and convenient way for patients to learn about, track, assess, and communicate with their doctors about  sickle cell pain.

Developed with teens in mind, people of all ages benefit from the Pinpoint app to identify different types of pain associated with sickle cell disease. Using gaming technology, Pinpoint offers an innovative pain assessment tool and a pain diary to log physical and emotional pain symptoms. With the touch of a finger, patients are able to describe and assess the intensity, duration, quality, nature, and location of the pain and report it to their caregivers and physician in real-time. Pinpoint is a web app and works on any smartphone or smart mobile device. Patients can play games, watch videos, learn preventive health tips, and visit the Patient Stories section with real stories and inspirational messages told by other sickle cell patients. 

Sickle cell disease is an inherited disorder of the red blood cells that disproportionately affects people of color. Chronic pain is the most common complication and profoundly disrupts people’s quality of life. Clinicians are often unsuccessful at addressing chronic pain in sickle cell disease, underscoring the need for the Pinpoint app. 

“The pain caused by sickle cell disease is incredibly difficult to manage and ‘pinpoint,’ especially for young patients,” said Hilton Hudson, MD, FACS, CEO of HPC International. “When meeting with top researchers at Children’s Hospital in Washington D.C., we all agreed that clinicians needed a better way to treat the different types of pain sickle cell patients may experience, which led HPC to develop a tool to do just that.” 

“Teaming up with HPC International and supported by grants from the NIH, Klein Buendel was privileged to create a supportive pain management tool for patients with sickle cell disease,” said Mary Buller, MA, President of Klein Buendel. “HPC and Klein Buendel combined content experts and web developers into a winning combination for patients and doctors.” 

The educational content in the Pinpoint app comes from the renowned and best-selling Hope & Destiny book series, written by three clinical expert leaders in hematology: James Eckman, MD, Lewis L Hsu, MD, PhD and Allan Platt, PA-C, MMSc. Hope & Destiny is Hilton Publishing’s premier educational book series on sickle cell disease and is tailored for different reader age groups, including adults and parents as well as adolescent patients. 

The Pinpoint app development project was facilitated through two Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants, awarded in 2016 and 2018 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). HPC collaborated with Klein Buendel, medical experts, teens, and parents of children with sickle cell disease to study how an interactive app with a customized pain assessment tool could provide an improved way for adolescents with sickle cell disease to learn about and better manage their disorder. The study’s Expert Advisory Board was formed by clinicians from institutions and nonprofit organizations including HOPE for SCD, UIC, Emory Healthcare, Children’s National, Marquette University College of Nursing, and the International Association of Sickle Cell Nurses and Professional Associates.

Pinpoint has been clinically evaluated to help aid in the management of pain caused by sickle cell disease. Market research, focus groups, surveys, interviews, and two comprehensive research studies were conducted virtually and in-person with teens, parents and clinical specialists representing communities across the country from 2016 through 2022.  Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities under grant numbers R43MD010746 and R44MD010746 awarded to Klein Buendel (Dr. Valerie Myers, initial Principal Investigator; Ms. Julia Berteletti, final Principal Investigator). Pinpoint was designed and programmed by Mr. Adam Ashby of the Klein Buendel Creative Team.

Already, Pinpoint has been featured in:

Sickle Cell Disease News, a healthcare industry website, which provides the sickle cell disease community with the most recent news and information on sickle cell disease.

MedCity News, a leading digital healthcare outlet.

LegalReader.com in their Health & Medicine section on August 23rd.

Healthcare IT Today, a leading digital health tech outlet, in a roundup of healthcare industry news (under the ‘Partnerships’ section) on August 17th.

Pinpoint is available to individuals and medical providers. An individual annual subscription fee is $9.99. To learn more about the Pinpoint app, check out the video tutorial or visit HPC International.

Prevention of Alcohol Use in Older Teens

Prevention of Alcohol Use in Older Teens

The growing incidence of alcohol use among teens is an important public health problem. In a recent publication in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Klein Buendel Senior Scientists, Dr. David Buller and Dr. Gill Woodall, joined multiple co-authors to report on the effects of a new alcohol use prevention program for older teenagers. The program is called Smart Choices 4 Teens. The paper reports the results from a randomized controlled trial assessing the impact of this online, interactive, family-based alcohol prevention program with over 400 families on preventing and reducing teen alcohol use.

Smart Choices 4 Teens was designed with three sequential components: general parent-teen communication, teen alcohol use, and teen romantic relationships. The creators adapted two evidence-based programs — Family Matter (1) and Parent Handbook (2) — to appeal to older teens and their parents. Communication skills training was incorporated through videos and interactive activities. The program was designed to have parents and teens go through the online activities separately and then complete a discussion activity together at the end of each component. The Alcohol Component is the focus of this publication.

Use of the program varied across families and components. Families that used more of the program reported better outcomes. Data related to dosage of the program and changes in drinking rates are reported in detail in the paper. Many positive effects were seen at 6-month and 12-month follow-ups with participating families. For example, teens in the experimental group reported fewer friends who had been drunk at six months, and parents in the experimental group reported more communication about social host laws. At 12 months, parents in the experimental group reported consuming fewer alcoholic beverages.

Overall, the findings suggest that Smart Choices 4 Teens was beneficial for families, especially when parents and teens completed more of the program. The authors believe that dissemination and implementation strategies that motivate completion of Smart Choice 4 Teens content, especially the Alcohol Component, can improve outcomes related to older teens’ alcohol use.

A full description of the methods, results, and conclusions of this study can be found in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. This research was funded by a grant to the Prevention Research Center at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA020977; Brenda Miller, Principal Investigator). Authors in addition to Dr. Miller, Dr. Buller, and Dr. Woodall include first author Dr. Hilary Byrnes, Dr. Joel Grube, Dr. Beth Bourdeau, and Dr. Meme Wang-Schweig from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. The Smart Choices 4 Teens program was produced by Klein Buendel’s Creative Team.

References

  1. Bauman, K. E., Foshee, V. A., Ennett, S. T., Hicks, K., & Pemberton, M. (2001). Family Matters: A family-directed program designed to prevent adolescent tobacco and alcohol use. Health Promotion Practice, 2, 81-96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/152483990100200112
  2. Turrisi, R., Jaccard, J., Taki, R., Dunnam, H., & Grimes, J. (2001). Examination of the short-term efficacy of a parent intervention to reduce college student drinking tendencies. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 15, 366–372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0893-164X.15.4.366
Technology, Social Media and Behavior Change

Technology, Social Media and Behavior Change

Klein Buendel (KB) Senior Scientist, Dr. Valerie Myers, was an invited presenter at The Colorado Cancer Coalition Annual Symposium held November 8-9, 2018 in Lakewood, Colorado. The mission of the Coalition is to eliminate the burden of cancer in Colorado. This year’s symposium, Elevating Personalized Cancer Care in Colorado, shared updates on innovative cancer care in Colorado and provided education and networking opportunities for professionals who work in cancer prevention, control, treatment, and survivorship.

Dr. Myers spoke about Technology, Social Media and Behavior Change in a session on Using Technology and Social Media to Advance Your Mission. She addressed multiple types of mHealth and eHealth technologies and the research behind their use in implementing health behavior change programs. Using her active research project Caminemos Juntas as an example, she was able to showcase how a smartphone app like Caminemos Juntas can be used to help Latina women overcome barriers to physical activity.

Dr. Myers said, “The benefit of technologies and digital health tools is that they have the capacity to be used in the real world with real people. That is their appeal.” She also stressed the importance of the use of digital technologies saying, “People who normally wouldn’t have access to empirically based and theory driven interventions now have access to them, so it really promotes the ability for scale up. I think this is where individual clinical trial-based health and public health come together really well, because you can translate what’s been done in rigorous trials and get it to the people to see if you can move the needle on these health behaviors.”

In addition to its importance, Dr. Myers said that digital health technologies such as mHealth and eHealth are “the way to get interventions in the hands of people that may never have been exposed to this messaging. If it can reach those individuals who have been neglected traditionally by health intervention and also meet people in a place where they feel comfortable and safe and are ready for change, then that excites me.”

KB scientists and staff have been active members of the Colorado Cancer Coalition and its Skin Cancer Task Force for over a decade.

Precision Pain Management App for Adolescents with Sickle Cell Disease

Precision Pain Management App for Adolescents with Sickle Cell Disease

Dr. Valerie Myers, KB Senior Scientist, is presenting a poster on the Pinpoint Project at the 39th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, April 11-14, 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Pinpoint: Gaming Technology to Engage Adolescent Sickle Cell Patients in Precision Pain Management” was a Phase I SBIR project that examined the feasibility and acceptability of a gamified tablet application intended to encourage teens (aged 13-17) to assess and talk about their sickle cell disease (SCD) pain. SCD is the most common inherited blood disorder in the U.S. and affects primarily African Americans and Hispanics. Approximately, 1,000 U.S. children are born with SCD annually. SCD complications can be serious and have a significant impact on well-being and quality of life.

Pain is the hallmark symptom associated with SCD and is the primary cause of SCD-related hospital admissions. Accurate assessment of pain specifiers (type, frequency, and intensity of pain) can help with ameliorating pain quickly and effectively. Reducing barriers to collection and promoting the value of accurate SCD pain assessment is a need in pediatric medicine. The interactive games for health literacy among youths have shown video games can improve self-efficacy; stimulate health discussions with friends, family, and clinical team; encourage seeking support and advice, and can emphasize behavior acquisition via experiential learning. Interactive games can provide information about causes, treatments, and self-care options, and can improve self-care and reduced emergency clinical utilization.

The Pinpoint app prototype for tablets and smartphones consisted of a Pain Assessment Tool, vocabulary game, body scanner reflection, educational self-disclosure activity, and excerpts from the Hope and Destiny Jr. book authored by Hsu, Rodrigues, and Brandalise. Four healthcare providers were interviewed on the app’s acceptability and potential function within the clinical practice. Sixteen teens participated in cognitive interviews, focus groups, and usability testing. The System Usability Scale (SUS), a validated tool for assessing the usability and acceptability of technological products, served as the primary outcome. The preliminary SUS score well above average, suggesting a high level of acceptability and usability among users. The conference poster will include final project outcomes and the plan for the future development of the full Pinpoint app.

This research was funded by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R43MD010746; Dr. Valerie Myers, PI). Research collaborators included Mary Buller from KB, and Dr. Hilton Hudson and Megan Lippert from the Hilton Publishing Company, publishers of the Hope & Destiny and Hope & Destiny Jr. sickle cell disease management books.

Welcome to the new KB Collaboratory!

Welcome to the new KB Collaboratory!

Welcome to the new KB Collaboratory – a fresh new edition of Klein Buendel’s blog. The KB Collaboratory complements our newly-designed website and disseminates timely information about our behavioral health research and collaborations.

Because we’re a “small bunch,” KB’s behavioral scientists, research staff, and developers collaborate with researchers, clinicians, and creatives from companies, universities, research institutes, and cancer centers around the world to design programs and products to prevent chronic disease. Along with our research publications, conference presentations, website, and social media, this blog is a dynamic outlet for sharing the health communication, education, and technology research that we do in collaboration with our distinguished research, business, and creative partners.

Watch for articles and features in the KB Collaboratory on our:

  • Research collaborators
  • Abstracts and conference presentations
  • Publications
  • New research projects
  • Technology and products
  • Outreach and education
  • News and announcements

If you’d like to get in touch, please email Mary Buller at [email protected].