Assistant Professor
College of Communication & Information
Florida State University
142 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee, FL 32306
(850)644-6237
Fax:(850)644-6253
mlustria@ci.fsu.edu
Mia Liza A. Lustria, Ph.D.
About STEER
This three-year new investigator research (NIR) aims to: (1) use participatory approaches to design a clinic-based tool to help build rural health providers’ capacity to improve screening rates and access to breast cancer care resources within rural non-white and low-SES populations; and (2) evaluate the system’s usability, sustainability, and perceived benefits in a rural health clinic setting , as well as its effects on increasing physicians’ breast cancer screening referrals and rural patients’ adherence to breast cancer screening and treatment referrals. The STEER (System for Tracking, Empowering, Equipping, and Reminding) will: send regular alerts to physicians to provide timely referrals in accordance with breast cancer screening guidelines; generate screening reminders that will include information and recommended actions tailored to patients’ specific needs or perceived barriers to cancer care; provide a tool to collect information from at risk patients and enable better tracking of patients throughout the cancer care continuum; and provide a tool to help monitor physician and patient adherence to breast cancer screening guidelines. This study seeks to develop an IT system tailored to patient and provider needs, which will not only be comprehensive and extensible but also sustainable in rural settings. We have been working closely with residents and health practitioners in two family clinics in Gadsden county and Wakulla counties throughout this study in order to enhance our understanding of how health IT systems should be designed in order to improve access among underserved populations and reduce disparities in the timely delivery of effective treatment and preventive interventions.