The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded the IU researchers nearly $492,000 to develop, implement and evaluate an interactive computer program that can bridge the language barrier.
The touch-screen computer program will be able to translate basic health questions and answers from English to Spanish and vice versa. An audio track will be designed to help illiterate patients, who will be verbally guided to the correct symbol on the computer screen.
Charles M. Clark Jr., M.D., professor of medicine and pharmacology at the IU School of Medicine and director of the DRTC, said the project is ideal for diabetic patients. Hispanics have an increased incidence of diabetes and frequently suffer more from its complications because they are diagnosed later into the disease.
Dr. Clark, who is the principal investigator of the grant, and David G. Marrero, Ph.D., professor of medicine and co-principal investigator, will lead the project which will provide health care professional training and patient education programs for Spanish-speaking diabetics, as well as "serve" as an interpreter in a clinical setting beginning at the Westside Community Health Center under the direction of Robert Einterz, M.D., clinical associate professor of medicine and assistant dean of international programs.
In the clinic, the program will be designed to collect basic data used to formulate treatment plans. Patients will be asked about their social and medical history, social and medical risk factors, general medical history, diabetes history and reason for the medical visit. Patients responses on the touch-screen monitor will be automatically translated into English and printed out for the health care worker. Those responses also automatically will be incorporated into the electronic medical record system for future reference.
The second touch screen application will be a diabetes education program that instructs the patient and records their responses to the computer prompts. Health care workers will then evaluate the patient's needs for additional education on diabetes.
Additionally, the grant provides training to health care staff at Hispanic/Latino clinics to enhance their knowledge of basic Spanish and Latino culture to assist them in communicating with and setting health care goals for their patients.
Data collected during the three-year study will be collected in the Regenstrief Medical Record System at the IU School of Medicine for analysis. Patient histories will be followed and evaluated to determine if computer program assisted in the care, treatment and outcome of diabetic patients.
Assisting with the project are Juan Jose Gagliardino, M.D., and personnel from the Center of Experimental and Applied Endocrinology, a research center created in 1977 by a joint agreement between the University of La Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the Argentine National Research Council, and the Bernardo A. Houssay Center, the Diabetes Education Training Center of CENEXA.