TAVIE™: a concept and an innovative platform
TAVIE™ is an acronym derived from Traitement Assistance Virtuelle Infirmière et Enseignement (French acronym for Treatment Virtual Nurse Assistance and Teaching), the virtual nurse concept informed by the past ten years of research. TAVIE translates in English as YOURLIFE.
Based on theories of behaviour change, TAVIE™ targets the development and consolidation of skills to empower the individual to action. The aim is to provide individuals with real-time tailored support in managing the challenges inherent to their health conditions. To this end, various interventions have been developed by researchers in the team that I lead and by practitioners from clinical or community settings, as the case may be. Once their content validated, these interventions are then transposed in the form of a web application with the help of a team of media arts and computer experts. These interventions are driven by a decision tree, making them web applications markedly different from more typical static websites.
These web applications consist of one to five interactive computer sessions, depending on the type of intervention, with each session lasting 10 to 30 minutes. The sessions are hosted by a virtual nurse who engages the user in a self-management skills-learning process. In addition to providing customized teaching, the virtual nurse refers to the experiences of others who have successfully managed similar situations.
Since the development of VIH-TAVIETM in 2008, ten other TAVIE™ interventions were created :