Purpose
Doctors and Health Care Professionals in British Columbia who treat patients with cancers have varying degrees of knowledge and information available about workplace exposures that can lead to cancers.
For example, in the case of mesothelioma, lack of awareness of the cause and types of workers who may have been exposed to asbestos in their workplace has led to a situation in which in only a small percentage of eligible patients are applying for worker’s compensation.
The proposed mobile software tool would be designed to assist doctors and health care professionals in identifying potential occupational settings that contribute to cancer as well as assist in filing worker’s compensation forms.
Overview
This collaborative initiative with CAREX and others in the UBC School of Population and Public Health will develop the first steps in conceiving a mobile accessible tool and take it through the initial requirements phase, so that a proof of concept may be demonstrated when applying for further funding/ grants, etc. The project will carry out focus groups with the target audience that will attempt to answer the following questions:
- Do medical professionals see a need for or the potential utility of such a software tool?
- What functional, usability and technical platform requirements would this software tool have?
Status (Winter 2012)
With focus groups completed and initial requirements defined, CAREX and eHealth Strategy Office are partnering to submit grant proposals to develop and prototype a mobile workplace exposure tool, and to measure and evaluate the efficacy of such a tool for the advancement of three health care improvement pathways – facilitated compensation/claim processing, occupational history data collection, and search-oriented access to the CAREX knowledge base of known, probably & possible environmental & workplace carcinogen agents.
Contact
For more information, please contact Michael Lim
