Most primary healthcare practitioners recognize the important relationship between diet, nutrition and patient's health, as well as the need for nutritional counseling. However, few currently incorporate dietary assessment and nutrition counseling into their practice. This project will develop a took called Electronic Lifestyle Assessment Development and Deployment Environment (ELADDEN) to automate the administration, collection, and analysis of dietary questionnaires and support dietary intervention efforts. ELADDEN combines nutrition screeners, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), anthropometric measurements, laboratory tests and health questionnaires. The patient and office staff will enter background data into a handheld computer with a touch sensitive screen in the physician's office. The data will then be stored via wireless Internet communications to a back-end server. Standard reports evaluating nutrition and fitness status and a """"""""readiness to change"""""""" score with treatment recommendations are generated for the patient and health care provider. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of designing, administering and using health and nutrition questionnaires employing handheld wireless technology with a remote server. Three levels of patient support are envisioned: 1.) Treatment and monitoring progress in the doctor's office, 2.) Providing information for patients not motivated to change, and 3.) Referral to a specialist when interest and need are high.
The commercialization potential for ELADDEN is very strong. The initial Phase III market would include physicians, dietitians, and home healthcare companies. Future target markets include: hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, physical fitness centers, corporate cafeterias, health intervention studies, chronic disease assessment and prevention programs, clinical studies, weight reduction programs, nutrition education programs and food and nutrition research studies or surveys. The target patient population in improving their fitness level, patients with diseases in which diet management and intervention is the focus and those healthy patients with a high-risk profile for chronic disease.
