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The health-related quality of life in people with MS is substantially lower than the general Australian population. The vision of Professor Ingrid van der Mei’s research is to harness digital health technologies with the aim of improving both clinical care and self-care for people with MS.
Professor van der Mei and her team are developing a digital patient-centred health care system (called InforMS), an online intervention (called MS WorkSmart), and a symptom tracker app (called My SymptoMS). In addition, four short new specialist Massive Open Online Courses (called MOOCs), will be developed and delivered, including content on mental health, social isolation, healthy ageing, choosing disease modifying therapies and supporting and caring for someone living with MS. The study will also assess the impacts of these systems and courses on behaviour change, health outcomes and clinical care for people with MS.
Professor Ingrid van der Mei and her team have made substantial progress in advancing four crucial projects for this senior fellowship in the last year: InforMS, MS WorkSmart, My SymptoMS and MOOCs.
The development of InforMS, a digital platform that people with MS can use as an electronic health record, is advancing quickly with active involvement from consumers. InforMS will be rolled out first among people participating in the Australian MS Longitudinal Study so that uptake can be assessed, and improvements can be made.
The MS WorkSmart program has been fully developed and all materials for a feasibility study have received ethics approval. A project manager and two clinical psychologists have been recruited. Initial testing of the program has shown it to be useful amongst participants. Data on feasibility is currently being analysed to plan a full-scale trial.
My SymptoMS, the symptom tracking app, is now fully developed, and was tested in parallel with MS WorkSmart and data on feasibility is also being analysed. Additional security testing is pending to meet Australian standards.
Three of the four specialised MOOCs courses will be available to the MS community later in 2024 – these are “Mental Health and MS”, “Ageing Well with MS” and “Deciding About Disease Modifying Therapies for MS”. Filming for the fourth MOOC course is planned for March-April of 2024 and materials will be developed over the next 12 months. Overall, the team found that involving people with MS significantly improved their digital products and they continue to work to bring about positive outcome for the MS community.
Updated 31 March 2024
$650,000
2022
5 years
