Creating an Evidence Base for Vision Rehabilitation
Overview
The 3-year project, "Creating an Evidence Base for Vision Rehabilitation", involves the implementation of the newly developed Electronic Vision Rehabilitation Record (EVRR®). EVRR is a multifaceted record designed to improve the quality of care and the efficiency with which care is provided to people who are visually impaired. EVRR provides the infrastructure of information technology software and connectivity designed to bridge the communication gap among the three, key, provider groups involved in vision rehabilitation - state agencies for those with visual impairments; private, primary-care physicians who refer patients for vision rehabilitation; and the private agencies that actually provide large portions of vision rehabilitation in most states.
This project is the beginning of an effort to use information technology, in the field of vision rehabilitation, to assure the use of evidence in the modification and refinement of best practice. EVRR will provide the detailed record of patient needs, treatments, outcomes, and functional improvements. The average functional improvement for all individuals who received services in a particular intervention will also be provided so an individual's improvement can be viewed in relation to the average improvement of other individuals in her/his group or other groups.
The lead agency on this project, Lighthouse International, built this software and the model upon which it is based. The project involves the installation and implementation of EVRR at Lighthouse International, The Iris Network in Maine, and the Central Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CABVI) in Utica, New York. EVRR will use functional ability scores that will clearly reflect the individual's progress over time and will also allow comparisons with other individuals.
The six objectives of the project include:
Training of all appropriate staff in the use of the best-practice protocols;
Installing the complete EVRR software at three nonprofit vision rehabilitation agencies and conducting the related staff training for their central-office staff and their network of field-based providers;
Information technology gap analyses to determine, build, and pilot the electronic interface between government provider agencies, private rehabilitation agencies, and primary care providers - all three of which jointly contribute to the vision rehabilitation of mutual patients;
Refinement of the EVRR software as indicated through feedback from the diverse pilot sites;
Validation of the system's logic and predictive ability; and
Construction and population of a national, benchmarking database with outcome-measurement data from pilot sites, thereby, developing the first vision rehabilitation evidence base for bestpractice.
Status
Due to major technical difficulties encountered with the original design of the system, the system was entirely re-designed as a web based application. This re-design also included the streamlining of the various assessment instruments used to determine clients pre and post-service functional ability.
Staff at Lighthouse International and the two partner agencies was trained in the use of the newly designed system and its applications and has been "live" since April 2007. Hence, data collection on clients' pre and post service functioning is currently in progress.
Investigators: Cynthia Stuen, PhD, Principal Investigator
Verena Cimarolli, PhD, Co-Investigator
Funded by: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Project Period: September 2004 - August 2007
Updated: 6/2007
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