Shannon M. Canfield

Information needs and information-seeking behaviour analysis of primary care physicians and nurses: a literature review

BACKGROUND The increase in the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) has contributed to physicians and nurses experiencing information overload. To address the problem of information overload, an assessment of the information needs of physicians and nurses will assist in understanding what they view as useful information to make patient care more efficient. OBJECTIVE To analyse studies that assessed the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of physicians and nurses in a primary care setting to develop a better understanding of what information to present to physicians when they making clinical decisions. METHOD A literature review of studies was conducted with a comprehensive search in PubMed, cinahl, scopus, as well as examination of references from relevant papers and hand-searched articles to identify articles applicable to this review. RESULTS Of the papers reviewed the most common information needs found among physicians and nurses were related to diagnoses, drug(s) and treatment/therapy. Colleagues remain a preferred information source among physicians and nurses; however, a rise in Internet usage is apparent. CONCLUSION Physicians and nurses need access to the Internet and job-specific resources to find practitioner-oriented information. In addition, effective usage of resources is important for improving patient care.

Issues and questions to consider in implementing secure electronic patient–provider web portal communications systems

PURPOSE Patients are increasingly interested in using Internet-based technologies to communicate with their providers, schedule clinic visits, request medication refills, and view their medical records electronically. However, healthcare organizations face significant challenges in providing such highly personal and sensitive communication in an effective and user-friendly manner. METHODS Based on the literature and our experience in providing a secure web-based patient-provider communication portal in primary care clinics, a framework was developed that identifies key issues and questions to consider in implementing secure electronic patient-provider communications systems. RESULTS The framework serves to categorize the many lessons learned from our implementation process and the specific issues and questions healthcare organizations need to consider in implementing such systems related to seven areas: strategic fit and priority; selection process & implementation team; integration into communications and workflows; HIPAA issues & clinic policies; systems implementation & training; marketing & enrollment; on-going performance monitoring. CONCLUSION The framework provides a useful guide for organizations looking to implement secure electronic patient-provider communication systems.

Health information needs, sources, and barriers of primary care patients to achieve patient-centered care: A literature review

To synthesize findings from previous studies assessing information needs of primary care patients on the Internet and other information sources in a primary care setting. A systematic review of studies was conducted with a comprehensive search in multiple databases including OVID MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Scopus. The most common information needs among patients were information about an illness or medical condition and treatment methods, while the most common information sources were the Internet and patients’ physicians. Overall, patients tend to prefer the Internet for the ease of access to information, while they trust their physicians more for their clinical expertise and experience. Barriers to information access via the Internet include the following: socio-demographic variables such as age, ethnicity, income, education, and occupation; information search skills; and reliability of health information. Conclusion: Further research is warranted to assess how to create accurate and reliable health information sources for both Internet and non-Internet users.

Consistency of Patient Preferences About a Secure Internet-Based Patient Communications Portal Contemplating, Enrolling, and Using

Internet-based secure communication portals (portal) have the potential to enhance patient care via improved patient–provider communications. This study examines differences among primary care patients’ perceptions when contemplating using, enrolling to use, and using a portal for health care purposes. A total of 3 groups of patients from 1 Midwestern academic medical center were surveyed at different points in time: (1) Waiting Room survey asking about hypothetical interest in using a portal to communicate with their physicians; (2) patient portal Enrollment survey; and (3) Follow-up postenrollment experience survey. Those who enroll and use a patient portal have different demographic characteristics and interest levels in selected portal functions (eg, e-mailing providers, viewing medical records online, making appointments) and initially perceive only limited improvements in care because of the portal. These differences have potential market implications and provide insight into selecting and maintaining portal functions of greater interest to patients who use the portal.

Physician Information Needs and Electronic Health Records (EHRs): Time to Reengineer the Clinic Note

Background: Primary care physicians face cognitive overload daily, perhaps exacerbated by the form of electronic health record documentation. We examined physician information needs to prepare for clinic visits, focusing on past clinic progress notes. Methods: This study used cognitive task analysis with 16 primary care physicians in the scenario of preparing for office visits. Physicians reviewed simulated acute and chronic care visit notes. We collected field notes and document highlighting and review, and we audio-recorded cognitive interview while on task, with subsequent thematic qualitative analysis. Member checks included the presentation of findings to the interviewed physicians and their faculty peers. Results: The Assessment and Plan section was most important and usually reviewed first. The History of the Present Illness section could provide supporting information, especially if in narrative form. Physicians expressed frustration with the Review of Systems section, lamenting that the forces driving note construction did not match their information needs. Repetition of information contained in other parts of the chart (eg, medication lists) was identified as a source of note clutter. A workflow that included a patient summary dashboard made some elements of past notes redundant and therefore a source of clutter. Conclusions: Current ambulatory progress notes present more information to the physician than necessary and in an antiquated format. It is time to reengineer the clinic progress note to match the workflow and information needs of its primary consumer.

Development of the PRE-HIT instrument: patient readiness to engage in health information technology

BackgroundTechnology-based aids for lifestyle change are becoming more prevalent for chronic conditions. Important “digital divides” remain, as well as concerns about privacy, data security, and lack of motivation. Researchers need a way to characterize participants’ readiness to use health technologies. To address this need, we created an instrument to measure patient readiness to engage with health technologies among adult patients with chronic conditions.MethodsInitial focus groups to determine domains, followed by item development and refinement, and exploratory factor analysis to determine final items and factor structure. The development sample included 200 patients with chronic conditions from 6 family medicine clinics. From 98 potential items, 53 best candidate items were examined using exploratory factor analysis. Pearson’s Correlation for Test/Retest reliability at 3 months.ResultsThe final instrument had 28 items that sorted into 8 factors with associated Cronbach’s alpha: 1) Health Information Need (0.84), 2) Computer/Internet Experience (0.87), 3) Computer Anxiety (0.82), 4) Preferred Mode of Interaction (0.73), 5) Relationship with Doctor (0.65), 6) Cell Phone Expertise (0.75), 7) Internet Privacy (0.71), and 8) No News is Good News (0.57). Test-retest reliability for the 8 subscales ranged from (0.60 to 0.85).ConclusionThe Patient Readiness to Engage in Health Internet Technology (PRE-HIT) instrument has good psychometric properties and will be an aid to researchers investigating technology-based health interventions. Future work will examine predictive validity.

Toward a patient-centered ambulatory after-visit summary: Identifying primary care patients’ information needs

ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the information needs of primary care patients as they review clinic visit notes to inform information that should be contained in an after-visit summary (AVS).Method: We collected data from 15 patients with an acute illness and 14 patients with a chronic disease using semi-structured interviews. The acute patients reviewed seven major sections, and chronic patients reviewed eight major sections of a simulated, but realistic visit note to identify relevant information needs for their AVS. Results: Patients in the acute illness group identified the Plan, Assessment and History of Present Illness the most as important note sections, while patients in the chronic care group identified Significant Lab Data, Plan, and Assessment the most as important note sections. Discussion: This study was able to identify primary care patients’ information needs after clinic visit. Primary care patients have information needs pertaining to diagnosis and treatment, which may be the reason why both patient groups identified Plan and Assessment as important note sections. Future research should also develop and assess an AVS based on the information gathered in this study and evaluate its usefulness among primary care patients. Practice Implications: The results of this study can be used to inform the development of an after-visit summary that assists patients to fully understand their treatment plan, which may improve treatment adherence.

Healthy Communities Initiative: a preliminary assessment of the University of Missouri-Sedalia health promotion partnership

Abstract The persistence and growth of health disparities among different population groups have heightened interest in understanding the unique role University–community partnerships can play in promoting health and well-being. Through a qualitative approach, this study used in-depth interviews to understand the conditions and factors that determine the effectiveness of collaborative University–community partnerships, and how collective action can impact members and their communities. Findings show that the success of a partnership stems from the community’s social protective factors such as community capacity to participate in collaborative projects, sense of community, community participation, and community extent of empowerment fostered by the collective process. The study concludes with a call for committed collaboration between partnership members and among community coalitions.

Patient Judgments about Hypertension Control: The Role of Variability, Trends, and Outliers in Blood Pressure Data (Preprint)

Background Uncontrolled hypertension is a significant health problem in the United States, even though multiple drugs exist to effectively treat this chronic disease. Objective As part of a larger project developing data visualizations to support shared decision making about hypertension treatment, we conducted a series of studies to understand how perceptions of hypertension control were impacted by data variations inherent in the visualization of blood pressure (BP) data. Methods In 3 Web studies, participants (internet sample of patients with hypertension) reviewed a series of vignettes depicting patients with hypertension; each vignette included a graph of a patient’s BP. We examined how data visualizations that varied by BP mean and SD (Study 1), the pattern of change over time (Study 2), and the presence of extreme values (Study 3) affected patients’ judgments about hypertension control and the need for a medication change. Results Participants’ judgments about hypertension control were significantly influenced by BP mean and SD (Study 1), data trends (whether BP was increasing or decreasing over time—Study 2), and extreme values (ie, outliers—Study 3). Conclusions Patients’ judgment about hypertension control is influenced both by factors that are important predictors of hypertension related-health outcomes (eg, BP mean) and factors that are not (eg, variability and outliers). This study highlights the importance of developing data visualizations that direct attention toward clinically meaningful information.

A decision support system for home BP measurements

Wearable and non-wearable sensors are pervasive. However, the health implications of the data they provide is not always clear for the user. In this paper we present a Decision Support System (DSS) that assists a user of a Home Blood Pressure (HBP) monitor to decide timely consultation with a doctor. While HBP is more reliable than office readings, it is more variable due to factors such as food, exercise or error in recording measurements. Our DSS is based on fuzzy rules composed of linguistic summaries of the data. The rules are designed from the current US clinical guidelines and are tuned using an evolutionary algorithm. On a dataset of 40 patients monitored over 3 months, we obtained an interrater agreement of 0.97 between the physicians and DSS trained with their data, while the average agreement between these same physicians was 0.95.