Christopher Zallek, MD Neurologist, NeuroHealth Lab Lead
NeuroHealth Lab
It’s projected that within the next 30 years, nearly one in 25 Americans will suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder such as dementia, Parkinson’s Disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. At the same time, there is already a shortage of neurologists to meet patient demand.
How might we overcome barriers to build access?
While the U.S. will face increased demand for neurologists in the future, the fact is that hospital systems are already experiencing a shortage in these specialists. That’s creating bottlenecks for patients seeking an evaluation and those requiring care for ongoing neurological conditions.
Understanding current and future needs, the NeuroHealth Lab is discovering new ways to assess, identify and treat individuals with neurologic conditions sooner. It’s transforming education to ensure medical students get the training they need to detect neurology issues. The lab is also seeking to enhance the quality of life for patients with ALS and other conditions that cause severe immobility.
The NeuroHealth Lab is creating new tools and models of care to achieve its goals. This could lead to earlier detection of certain conditions and interventions that change a person’s outcome for the better.
Next generation solutions
- Digitizing the neurologic exam: When clinicians need to document neurologic exam findings, they create subjective verbal descriptions in the electronic medical record (EMR). This subjectivity causes clinicians caring for the patient in the future to question how to interpret those original findings or whether they have changed. The NeuroHealth Lab is developing a mobile device application to video record and objectively measure specific exam findings. This enables clinicians to accurately communicate and review results without concern for misinterpretation. The idea is, with better information, to be able to make diagnoses earlier and easily monitor a patient’s neurological conditions, regardless of location.
- Task trainers: Learning to examine patients for possible neurological conditions is challenging for medical students and residents as they most likely will not consistently encounter many individuals with these conditions as part of their training. As a result, new physicians and other clinicians may not have the experience they need to recognize at times subtle indicators of abnormal neurologic function. The NeuroHealth Lab has created four task trainers that replicate spasticity, rigidity, muscle weakness and clonus of the ankle. This will give medical students and residents consistent training experiences to identify these abnormalities.
If you are interested in learning more about the NeuroHealth Lab, participating in certain aspects of the journey or if you want to invest or collaborate, contact us today.
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Noel Adams, VP, Academic Collaborations & Operations