Abdominal Pain, Constipation, Deglutition Disorders, Diarrhea, Fecal Incontinence, Gastroesophageal Reflux, Nausea
Conditions
Brief summary
Healthcare delivery now mandates shorter visits with higher documentation requirements, undermining the patient-provider interaction. Electronic health records (EHRs) have the potential to improve outcomes and quality of care in this pressured environment, and are endorsed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act as an important mechanism to support value-based healthcare. However, EHR systems were principally designed to support the transactional needs of administrators and billers, less so to nurture the relationship between patients and their providers. The purpose of this research is to identify ways to use EHRs to support clinical gastroenterologists and their patients while meeting the meaningful use requirements of the HITECH Act. To improve clinic visit efficiency and meet criteria for meaningful use, investigators developed a patient-provider portal (P3) that systematically collects patient symptoms using a computer algorithm called Automated Evaluation of Gastrointestinal Symptoms (AEGIS). AEGIS utilizes computerized adaptive testing (CAT) to guide patients through questions drawn from a library of over 300 symptom attributes measuring the timing, severity, frequency, location, quality, and character of their GI symptoms, along with relevant comorbidities, family history, and alarm features. The system then automatically translates the patient report into a full narrative HPI available for use by GI providers in an EHR. In a cross-sectional study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology comparing AEGIS versus physician-documented HPIs, investigators found that blinded physician reviewers perceived that AEGIS HPIs were of higher overall quality, better organized, and more succinct, comprehensible, complete and useful compared to HPIs written by physicians during usual care in academic GI clinics. In the current study, investigators aim to evaluate computer-generated HPIs prospectively on a wider scale in diverse academic and community-based settings. Moreover, investigators aim to test an enhanced AEGIS intervention that ties patient HPIs to an individualized education prescription which guides the patient through a library of multi-media educational materials on GI symptoms, conditions, and treatments.
Interventions
AEGIS (Automated Evaluation of Gastrointestinal Symptoms) guides patients through questionnaires to measure symptom attributes including the timing, severity, frequency, location, quality, and character of their gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, along with relevant comorbidities, family history, and alarm features. This information is transformed into a history of present illness (HPI) written in language familiar to clinicians. AEGIS also supports both the clinician and patient with an individualized education prescription which guides the patient through a library of multi-media educational materials on GI symptoms, conditions, and treatments. The prescription is created by the portal based on each patient's unique AEGIS fingerprint.
Sponsors
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Study design
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Presenting to the gastrointestinal clinic for evaluation. * Able to read and write English. * Has basic computing skills.
Exclusion criteria
* Having been seen and evaluated in the gastrointestinal clinic within the last 8 months.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Prevalence of documented alarm symptoms | Completed and documented by the physician in the clinic note within 1 week of the initial clinic visit | Prevalence of documented alarm symptoms (blood in the stool, unintentional weight loss, hematochezia, hematemesis) in the clinic note as documented by physicians. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Prevalence of diagnosed organic disease | Organic disease (e.g., Celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.) diagnosed within 6 months of the initial clinic visit |
| Time to diagnosis of organic disease | Time to diagnosis of organic disease (e.g., Celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.) within 6 months of the initial clinic visit |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed