The awarded project is titled “The Utilization of the Non-Surgical Spine Care Companion (NSSCC) for Patients with Acute Low Back Pain: A Pilot Study of Patient and Provider Usability.” The NSSCC is a 10-week education program developed at UW that guides patients along their spine pain care plan. The program includes 6 educational modules, which are progressively read by patients at 2-week intervals. The aim of the study is to evaluate the usability of the NSSCC from the perspective of patients and providers as well as compare the patient population who are prescribed the NSSCC to those patients who are not. Dr. Chris Lewis will work with a team of experts in building digital health tools and managing acute low back pain, including Joe Ihm, MD, Emilie Jones, PT, DPT, Sean Rundell, DPT, PhD, Crystal Wong, MD, Sean Munson, PhD, and Natalia Usoltseva, MD, FACP, MHA.
Dr. Lewis is a clinical informatics fellow at the University of Washington and a board-certified physician in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. Concurrent with his informatics fellowship, he is enrolled in the Clinical Informatics & Patient-Centered Technologies Master of Science degree program at the University of Washington. Dr. Lewis is an Epic Physician Builder-certified and his research interests include leveraging novel data collection methods to help build learning health systems for rehabilitation medicine.