Project Breathe
Improving the transition process from paediatric to adult cystic fibrosis (CF) care by identifying and filling gaps in patient knowledge, promoting compliance for chronic illness management and empowering adolescents with CF.
Team members:
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Reena Zelenkova (Bachelor of Science (Computational Science) and Biomedical Science)
Clinician:
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Kate Johnson, (Monash Health Children's Hospital, Lung and Sleep)
Funding:
Healthcare Innovation Summer Scholarships (HISS) Phase 2 funding, Monash Institute of Medical Engineering
Project History
Project Breathe originated from the HISS 2020/2021 program.
Over the last year Project Breathe has completed the transitioning of CF US based educational content for adolescents to content compatible with the Australian healthcare system. In addition, we have worked on developing novel resources for CF education. This includes creating medication guides and clinical diary formats. We have also worked towards developing an elaborate breakdown of our app content and its targeted outcomes for the user.
We have liaised with various organisations, foundations and professionals to support us through our journey of development. This year we formed connections with Curve Tomorrow, the RCH, Monash CF foundation and Spark Healthcare. We also conducted 30+ interviews with patients (pre, post and during transition), parents, carers, and associated healthcare workers.
Project Breathe has been awarded HISS phase II funding to continue towards its goals. We have also proposed our ideas to CF Circle of Care (Vertex) and 65km for CF for funding and are awaiting outcomes.
We are beginning recruitment for our technical phase where we aim to implement a beta version of our web platform for CF care.
Goals
We aim to secure further funding for the technical development of our web platform. This would involve further communication with CF foundations and other potential foundations. This will enable us to develop the front end of the web-app over the course of the year. We ultimately aim to implement the education components of the program (quizzes, interactive activities, information), medication lists, MDT contacts and biomarker tracking.
Plans
We plan on recruiting a new team for 2022 to join both our research and development areas to propel our implementation phase. Project Breathe also aims to gain funding from 65km for CF and apply for further funding to support our technical development. Ideally, we aim to affirm plans with Curve Tomorrow for technical support during development. We also plan to support our development through collaboration with the RCH as they are creating a similar concept for their hospital.