Digital health solution to enable healthcare consumers to identify and communicate their needs and preferences with healthcare staff.

Name of intervention: MyNeeds digital health intervention. This digital health intervention was co-designed with healthcare consumers and health service staff using an Experience Based Co-design (EBCD) process. The EBCD process involved a number of steps over a 12-month period, including: 16 focus groups conducted at the program level with a total of 92 staff representing medical, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and support staff; individual in-depth interviews with 12 healthcare consumers; establishment of staff priority areas for the codesign workshops; establishment of consumer priority areas for the codesign workshops; three 120-minute face to face and two virtual codesign workshops with 12 staff members and 7 consumers where the intervention was codesigned (inclusive of content and workflows); and two digital codesign workshops with 7 consumers to refine the layout and design of the MyNeeds intervention. Consumes had the opportunity to interact with the MyNeeds intervention in these digital codesign workshops through their own SMART devices and provide feedback that was used to refine the intervention in preparation for this feasibility study. There are two key processes involved with the MyNeeds digital health intervention: 1) the electronic capture of broad needs and preferences directly from healthcare consumers or their support people; and 2) the integration of these needs and preferences data captured within the MyNeeds Intervention with the health service electronic health record at the patient level. Health service clinicians are able to view consumer needs and preferences in the electronic health record prior to, and during clinical encounters. Health service clinicians are then able to use this information to inform individualised care planning in partnership with the consumer, and if applicable their support people. Materials used: Electronic smart device (such as smart phone or tablet) or computer connected to the internet (either wireless or hard-wired internet). Arden Street Labs Virtual Care Solution, known as Monitor++, that houses the electronic consumer needs and preferences intervention. This virtual care solution is already imbedded into systems at the healthcare organisation where feasibility testing will occur. The electronic health record in use at the health network where feasibility testing will occur. Daily reports from Monitor++ will capture all occasions that a consumer initially populates the MyNeeds intervention, and every occasion that needs and preferences are updated. These reports will be monitored by project staff. Who will deliver the intervention: Healthcare consumers and/or their support people populate the electronic consumer facing survey and view and/or edit the consumer needs and preferences summary page with or without assistance (if required). Populating the MyNeeds consumer facing survey takes approximately 10 t0 15 minutes. Automated electronic process to integrate the consumer needs and preferences data with the electronic health record. Mode of delivery: Consumers use their own smart device (if available), or a hospital supplied device (if the consumer doesn’t have access to their own smart device). Health service clinicians access the consumer needs and preferences data through existing processes to access the electronic health record. Location: The intervention can be accessed by consumers from any location where a smart device is connected to the internet including: emergency departments; hospital wards; community health settings; outpatient clinics; private residences; and residential aged care facilities. Health service clinicians access data collected in the intervention within the healthcare setting that they routinely access health service electronic health records. Timing and dose: The initial consumer needs and preferences survey is populated once. Consumers can then log in and view, and/or update their preferences as often as they choose. There is no requirement for a consumer to update their needs and preferences, nor is there a limit on the number of times that they can update these preferences. Health service staff will have access the consumer needs and preferences data as often as they are logged into the health services electronic health record and have the consumers individual electronic health record open. This feasibility study will run for a total period of 6 months, including two-six week testing periods across an acute medical and an inpatient rehabilitation unit. Procedures and personalisation: Consumers receiving healthcare will be informed of the intervention and invited to register for the intervention. Consumers will have the option to receive assistance with registration and populating the MyNeeds intervention from a support person, a member of the project team, or from a ward-based consumer volunteer. The medical decision maker or next of kin will be approached in cases where the consumer is too unwell to populate the MyNeeds intervention independently or with support. In such cases the medical decision maker or next of kin will populate the MyNeeds intervention as a proxy for the consumer. Consumers will be able to tailor the information that they enter, and the frequency that they update the information in the MyNeeds intervention.