The overall objective of this Phase I SBIR effort is to design a personally customized, interactive multimedia expert system for promotion of exercise programs among chronically ill elderly patients, called the "Personalized Interactive Exercise" ("PIE"). This will be built as a specialized module on top of a comprehensive,multimedia distributed network computer system for "Continuously Available Medical Care" (CAMC) focused on the needs of chronically ill patients. Using the advanced CAMC Tool Kit scripting and expert system language. physicians will input medical condition parameters and patients will provide personal preferences and home/living factors, then the PIE software will create a customized training and monitoring CD-R0M which accounts for medical problem factors such as diabetes and peripheral vascular disease. Multimedia video training, rules for progression of exercise and live videoconferencing to physicians and exercise trainers will be features of the PIE system. As part of this Phase I effort, a prototype will he constructed and tested at congregate housing for the elderly in conjunction with researchers from the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged in Boston. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The market for PIE modules and products is substantial. The marginal value of PIE to the CAMC homecare system is approximately $100 per year; for the 1 million high cost illness patients this totals $100 million per year as a market. Even if LG&A reaches only several percent, this is very attractive annual recurring revenue base with high net income after the first few years. Sales of PIE "authoring" software for physicians to create PIE CD-ROMs for their patients, priced at $750 (as an example) per primary care physician to a market with 300,000 potential buyers is also a several hundred million dollar opportunity; again a small percent of this market is an attractive business for LG&A.
