Using individualized continuous patient education (iCOPE) platform to facilitate smoking cessation in hospitalized patients

Smoking cessation counseling in hospitalized patients is important component of preventive care. Information technology for continuous patient health education and counseling could be a powerful means for health promotion and disease prevention however delivery of smoking cessation programs in hospitals via interactive technology has not be widely implemented. The goal of this project was to develop an interactive platform for patient health education and evaluate its feasibility in hospitalized smokers. We developed a universal platform for Individualized Continuous Patient Education (iCOPE). This platform is a comprehensive informatics framework for rapid adaptation and dissemination of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) products tailored to different categories of health consumers including difficult-to-reach patients. The iCOPE platform implements universal means for customized delivery of CER information in the format of interactive self-paced educational modules, quick "question & answer" guides, and interactive decision aids. In addition, the iCOPE platform will support the innovative concept of continuous patient health education by providing patients with easy access to the interactive CER updates via web, MP3 players and phone-based interactive voice response (IVR) technology. We tested usability and acceptance of educational platforms in patients who are active smokers. Our results demonstrated high acceptance of this technology by patients and its potential to facilitate smoking cessation.