Motivation
Regular physical activity plays an important role in preventing and managing over 40 medical conditions, including heart disease, depression, and diabetes. There is also evidence of improved surgical outcomes when patients undergo a prehabilitation exercise program. Physical activity solutions are an important part of improved patient care; however, providers lack a streamlined, integrated mechanism to prescribe and monitor physical activity. Healthcare providers need an easy and clinically relevant way to capture patients’ physical activity levels, prescribe personalized exercise plans, and lend support throughout their patients’ physical activity and health journey.
Approach
We built ExerciseRx to be a pragmatic, scalable platform for physical activity prescription. ExerciseRx consists of a patient app and provider dashboard in the EPIC Electronic Health Record (EHR), connecting patients and providers through a semi-automated feedback loop. Created in partnership with the Ubicomp Lab in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and UW Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE), ExerciseRx leverages AI/ML-powered support to promote sustainable behavior change around physical activity and rehabilitation to more patients.
ExerciseRx was built with the belief that physical activity is a vital component of physical and mental wellness, and our efforts are aligned with the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise is Medicine initiative and the Physical Activity Alliance. Our aim is for ExerciseRx to become the “go-to” resource for making physical activity a part of routine patient care.
Where We Are
- The ExerciseRx platform is accessible to providers through EPIC, the electronic health record (EHR) system used at UW Medicine. It is available on the Apple app store and Google play store.
- We completed our first clinical study with patients and providers using the ExerciseRx platform and are collaborating with clinics and across multiple medical specialties.
- Our on-going research collaborations include Seattle Children’s Hospital, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and UW Multiple Sclerosis Rehabilitation & Wellness Research Center.
To learn more about ExerciseRx and ways you can support this work, please contact us at [email protected].