The University of Utah College of Nursing is pleased to announce that Dr. Lauri Linder, PhD, APRN, CPON, FAAN, FAPHON, has received a prestigious R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The $2,904,474 grant will fund her project titled “mHealth Intervention to Support Symptom Communication for Children with Cancer,” which aims to improve symptom communication for children during the early stages of cancer treatment.
The project will build upon the existing Color Me Healthy app, a child-centric, game-based assessment tool that helps children with cancer communicate 11 common symptoms, identify the location of symptoms on their bodies, and express other health concerns. This project will support the integration of the data that children report using Color Me Healthy into the electronic health record. Dr. Linder and her team will then evaluate the implementation of Color Me Healthy to improve symptom communication from the perspectives of children, parents, and clinicians. By using a standards-based approach for integrating children’s self-reported data into the electronic health record, this study will provide a foundation for comparing symptom outcomes across healthcare settings.
“A child’s ability to effectively communicate their symptoms in a way that is understood by parents and clinicians is crucial to alleviate the suffering associated with childhood cancer,” said Linder. “This approach builds on previous studies of Color Me Healthy, which demonstrated its feasibility and acceptability as well as the need to support symptom tracking in a child-centric way between clinical visits. This study also responds to parents’ requests for a tool to support symptom reporting during the early months after their child’s diagnosis.”
Marla De Jong, PhD, RN, CCNS, FAAN, Dean of the College of Nursing, said, “We are thrilled that the National Cancer Institute awarded this grant to Dr. Linder. In her clinical nurse specialist role at Primary Children’s Hospital, Dr. Linder observed that although today’s children are digital natives, they have difficulty remembering and reporting symptoms. As a nurse scientist, she meticulously designed and tested mobile technology that children with cancer can use to self-report symptoms such as pain, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and cough. With this new funding, Dr. Linder will integrate the technology with the electronic health record.”
Dr. Linder’s interprofessional project brings together experts in the conceptualization, development, and implementation of digital health interventions at the University of Utah and Intermountain Health.
Color Me Healthy received programming support from the University of Utah’s Therapeutic Games and Apps (GApp) lab, which is aligned with the University of Utah’s Digital Health Initiative, which seeks to transform health and health care for patients, families, and healthcare teams through digital health innovations. The NCI-funded project period will continue until June 30, 2029, and includes Drs. Roger Altizer, Guilherme Del Fiol, Kensaku Kawamoto, Amy Newman, Michael Pulsipher, Pallavi Ranade, and Xiaoming Sheng.