Mobile and Electronic (ME)-Health ARC

Director

Belinda Borrelli

Co-Directors

Joanne Murabito and Daniel Fulford

Name Title Institution Department Area of Expertise for this Project
Belinda Borrelli, PhD PI, Director of ME-ARC, and Professor Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) GSDM Health Policy & Health Services Research; Director, Center for Behavioral Science Research Behavioral medicine digital health, clinical psychology, underserved populations
Dan Fulford, PhD  Co-Director of ME-ARC, Assistant Professor  Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SAR)  SAR Occupational Therapy  Ecological momentary assessment, schizophrenia 
Joanne Murabito, MD Co-Director of ME-ARC, Professor Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) BUSM

Department of Medicine, General Internal Medicine

Digital technologies, older adults, physical activity, cardiovascular health
View ME-ARC Website

Other Contributing Members

Name Title Institution Department Area of Expertise for this Project
Lisa Quintiliani, PhD External Collaborator for ME-ARC, Associate Professor Tufts Medical Center Health promotion, nutrition, mobile health, physical activity
Hasmeena Kathuria, MD Assistant Professor, Director of the Tobacco Treatment Center   Boston University, Boston Medical Center Pulmonary, Allergy, and Sleep Tobacco dependence treatments; lung function; social deteriminants of health; substance use
Scott Werntz CEO 

 

Nordic Health  N/A  Programming text messages and designing algorithms for customization of text messages 
William Adams, MD  Professor  Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine (BUSM)  BUSM Pediatrics  Pediatrics, IT-based solutions for improving quality of care, Electronic Health Records, patient-centered IT, clinical data warehousing.  Member of ME-ARC Steering committee 
William Tomlinson, PhD Director, Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIIL) Boston University Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering Integrates SAIL software engineering throughout research projects and programs at BU
Greg Frasco, BS Associate Director of Engineering, SAIL Boston University Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering Designing, developing, and deploying mobile health applications for behavioral intervention research studies

Synopsis

The mission of the Mobile and Electronic Health-ARC (ME-ARC) is to conduct state-of-the-art research and training in mobile and electronic health to improve health and well-being, with a focus on underserved populations, across the lifespan. The ARC is transdisciplinary, consisting of a steering committee, external advisory board, trainees, and over 175 member affiliates across numerous schools at Boston University.  Steering committee members have expertise in: implementation science, behavioral science, medicine, informatics/bioinformatics, software development, health literacy, engineering, and global health.

Since January 2016, the ME-ARC has hosted invited speakers at monthly seminars, and has held a yearly ME-Health symposium.  The ME-ARC coalesces mobile health resources and researchers at Boston University and conducts state-of-the-art mobile health pilot projects.

Continuing as an ARC Program, work persists on refining the digital health disparities guidelines having spent the previous year developing domains of disparities gleaned from multi-disciplinary discussion groups from prior years. Although there are general guidelines for the development of digital solutions to improve and maintain health and wellness, to our knowledge, there are no guidelines for the development of digital solutions that are targeted towards disparity-facing populations.  The goal is to develop a framework that will focus on health literacy, strategies for user engagement, incorporation of cultural attitudes and values, and user centered design, among other foci. Dr. Borrelli formerly led an NIH working group on the development of guidelines and a checklist for treatment fidelity (i.e., preservation of internal validity), and published the findings in high impact journals and they are now widely used and have over 5K citations (Borrelli et al 2005; 2011). Dr. Borrelli also presented these at the National Academy of Science.  Creating guidelines in digital health for underserved populations will enable Boston University to gain a foothold as having expertise in the area once the guidelines and checklist are published.   

Core Members

Belinda Borrelli, PhD, GSDM
Lisa Quintiliani, PhD, Medicine
Tibor Palfai, PhD, CAS, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Rebecca Mishuris, MD, Medicine
Andrei Lapets, Computer Science
Micheal PaascheOrlow, MD, Medicine
Catherine Klapperich, PhD, Biomedical Engineering
Chris Shanahan, MD, Medicine
Ioannis Pascalidas, PhD, Engineering, Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering
Donald Thea, PhD, Global Health
Alan Walkey, MD, Medicine
Muhammad Zaman, Biomedical Engineering

Affiliate Members

Bill Adams, MD, Medicine/Pediatrics
David Felson, MD, Medicine
Emelia Benjamin, MD, Medicine
Karen Lasser, MD, Medicine/SPH
Renda Weiner, MD, Medicine
Snezana Milanovic, MD, Psychiatry
Joanne Murabito, MD, Medicine
Hasmeena Kathuria, MD, Medicine
Dan Brooks, DSc, SPH
Swathi Kiran, PhD, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Dan Fulford,PhD, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Occupational Therapy
John Donald Otis PhD, College of Arts and Sciences, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Chadi Tannoury, MD, Medicine
Kim Mueser, PhD, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Occupational Therapy; College of Arts and Sciences, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Azer Bestavos, PhD, Hariri Institute for Computing
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, School of Public Health
Frederick Jansen, PhD, Hariri Institute for Computing, Software and Application Innovation Lab
Scott Werntz, CEO, Agile Health