It's hard to believe it's already March! So much happens every week that the time seems to fly past, and yet we find it impossible that so much of 2020 has already come and gone.
Our Tele-Rehab 2.0 team would like to extend a huge welcome to everyone who has visited this site in the last week. We are so happy that you took an interest in our project and found your way here - and hopefully, we will hear more from you soon!
To start off with, we would like to highlight the media stories that were published about our project last week. It was amazing to get this exposure for the project on such a broad platform. If you are interested, you can have a look at all of the articles that were published below:
CTV News at Noon (starting at 11:10): https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1905072&jwsource=cl&fbclid=IwAR2jnM7efGqMOcQEdHekfUg2b1Y0ofkdy4MPiT8n4_6dMfQ4TnVtPtKh9m4
CBC Radio (French): https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1538133/medecin-docteur-distance-rural-qualite-soins-robot-alberta-hopital
Now for a bit of a regular update!
When the project first started, we had hoped that we would be starting our community trials in March 2020. We are still hopeful that trials will begin mid-March, but we are playing a waiting game with ethics approval and cannot get started until this is received.
We have also had to change our approach to the trials. Initially, we had thought we would run 4 sites concurrently, with all four modules being offered at each site. As is typical with an exploratory project of this nature, this has been revised to reflect what is going to be most effective and attainable. The current plan is to stagger our community trials so that we are only ever running two sites at the same time. Each site will hold assessments for 8 weeks before the equipment will be transitioned to the next site. Additionally, we will be running trials in five sites total, but one is only for the Wheelchair Seating module. We will begin with our Wheelchair Seating specific site in Jasper, then begin in Grande Prairie, and after completion in Jasper we will start in Peace River. Our final two sites are yet to be finalized, but trials will not begin until July at the earliest.
We are excited to start this next phase of the project! As always, if you have ideas, questions, or just want to say hi, please reach out through our Contact page.