SBIR PHASE I TOPIC 406 SYSTEM FOR NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE TO PATIENTS (SNAP)

Cancer care is becoming more complex each year, making the patient’s path to, and through the care continuum confusing and daunting. Patient-navigation programs for cancer patients have grown in recent years, but their navigation support is fragmented in many ways and often incomplete, lessening their effectiveness. A digital tool to support cancer navigators and patients must be available anytime and anywhere to navigators, patients and ideally the patient’s personal support network. It must also be able to support a range of organizational models, and be able to interconnect with a range of EHR systems. The System for Navigation Assistance to Patients (SNAP) is proposed to meet these requirements. SNAP is a role-based smart-phone app that uses an underlying social network model of relationships to interconnect a range of users, and a FHIR-based API to interoperate with EHRs. The overall goal of the Phase I research is to demonstrate the feasibility of the SNAP product through four objectives: 1) developing a needs analysis for SNAP design and development; 2) designing the SNAP system architecture, use model, functionality, and UI/UX design; 3) building a Phase I SNAP prototype; and 4) assessing the usability and feasibility of SNAP for Phase II development.