Vinfen Health and Wellness App for Young Adults Vinfen is evaluating the feasibility and impact of an innovative care management application via smartphones for use with young adults with psychiatric conditions. After significant review of potential developers, Vinfen engaged Wellframe, Inc, a Cambridge-based software company, to partner together to develop a private App to deliver person-specific self-management coaching interventions in physical and behavioral health. Funding for this innovation is provided by a Cummings Foundation grant and a Scattergood Award for excellence.
The health and wellness App educates participants about healthy lifestyle behaviors and coping strategies and allows staff to remotely monitor psychiatric conditions and behaviors. The learning through this system is reinforced by person-centered, health self management coaching provided by staff. Moreover, the App is used as a vehicle to maintain engagement and improve adherence to treatment regimens. The App includes: a Daily To Do List which identifies tasks required for healthy and productive personal routines; video, audio and text presentations on many coping strategies and health practices; links to necessary community resources; the capacity to build an individual Coping Corner; and personal expressions of recovery via mixed media.
The project interventions aim to improve the young adults’ ability to manage their health independently, enhance their recovery, and change the potential trajectory of their condition to reduce long term use of the healthcare system. The project will inform the field regarding the effectiveness of technology with the young adult population and will serve as a pilot program that can be scaled to address the needs of older adults with psychiatric conditions served by Vinfen’s other community based rehabilitation and recovery teams. The project will also produce strategies to engage young adults with mhealth applications and assess the potential of emerging e-health fields such as clinical social media and online behavioral health therapies for this population.
Data to be collected include:
• Demographic information
• Monthly Service Outcomes
• Data from App Desktop
• Service Utilization of community based rehabilitation team
• Progress on Service Plan Review
• Participant Self-Efficacy Scales (SF-12 and Stanford 6 Chronic Self-Efficacy Scale)
• Use of acute care services