Dr. Paul Hartlaub is the Principal Investigator on the project entitled Weight Management for a Defined Employee Population using an Interactive eHealth Portal at Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Q: What is unique and/or innovative about your study?
This interactive weight-management eHealth portal is home grown from within our healthcare institution and will be studied in our employee population. It will employ several innovative tools including an electronic bulletin board where appropriate medical and nutritional experts can address concerns and questions posed by the participants. There are also electronic “greeting cards” which can be sent between participants for encouragement. There is a “calorie needs” calculator that takes the calories consumed, subtracts the calories burned through basal and additional activities and gives a balance for a specified time period.

Q: How is your project progressing so far?
We have had a couple of minor Institutional Review Board snags, but anticipate getting an expedited approval. We have strong institutional support and a great deal of interest from employees. In fact, we have had 12 employees contact us to volunteer, even though we have not begun recruitment and have announced that we cannot accept subjects at this point.

Q: What prompted you to explore this research?
Obesity is a worsening problem locally as well as nationally. When I saw that someone from within our healthcare organization was developing internet-based tools for weight management, it was easy to see the potential benefit of studying the effectiveness of these tools. Specifically, if they are effective, they can be made available broadly on the Internet.

Q: How would a typical end-user utilize the final product/results of your research?
If these tools are shown to be effective, they could be made broadly available through the Internet for employee groups, including our own 25,000 employees, patients and the community in general. The cost to maintain this program will be minimal.

Q: What are the greatest challenges in eHealth and more specifically, your project?
I think the greatest challenge will be maintaining subject engagement and participation. The lifestyle changes that we are attempting to affect are not changed easily. Success on the part of the participant will require a great deal of effort and utilization of the Internet tools offered. We have limited ability to actively reach out and engage the participants, so if they are not highly motivated, there may be a high level of attrition.

Q: In what ways would you like to see eHealth evolve?
I would like to see the various eHealth tools become even more fun to use. As noted above, one of the biggest challenges is to keep participants engaged and active. The more attractive and fun the tools are, the more likely they are to be utilized to their full potential.

Q: How do you stay informed of advances and innovations in eHealth?
Being involved with the RWJ Foundation and the Health e-Technologies Initiative has proven to be a great way to network and stay updated in this field. Other ways I stay informed include word of mouth, medical journals and the lay press.

Paul – thanks for the progress report.

In February, we’ll check in with Dr. Harold Goldberg at the University of Washington.