The STEHL Phase II project will build upon a project that was funded by the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) under Federal Award Number UG4 LM013729-3 with the University of Iowa and awarded to the Northern Illinois University (NIU) under Subaward No. S04162-01 from August 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024. The toolkit by health care professionals for older adults in retirement homes is entitled “Smart Tablets Education for Healthy Living (STEHL).” This project is aligned with the NNLM mission to improve public access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health. The project also is aligned with the NNLM initiative to bridge the digital divide, which is “to promote technology, digital equity, digital literacy, and telehealth through long-term partnerships and collaborations that will bring access to online health information to communities across the United States.” 

The earlier STEHL project provided smart tablets (Samsung A7) to older adults living in 3 retirement homes in the DeKalb area, IL. The project provided smart tablets, STEHL hand book, and STEHL webpage that included detailed information on workshops, and also provided one on one training to older adults on how to use smart tablets and to access reliable health related information. However the reach was limited to only 3 retirement homes. Since most of the older adults stated during evaluation that they were 100% satisfied with the STEHL program, we want to extend the benefit of the program to a wider range of older adults living in and around the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Our goal is to help older adults in retirement homes have digital access to reliable health information from NNLM and other websites so that they can be up to date with current trends in health. We will accomplish this by training health care professionals and students in allied health fields to use the STEHL toolkit for training older adults in retirement homes. We vision completing this project to reach 50 to 60 older adults.