A shared e-decision support portal for pediatric asthma

Abstract

We describe the user-centered development of an electronic medical record-based portal, "MyAsthma," designed to facilitate shared decision making in pediatric asthma. Interviews and focus groups with 7 parents of children with asthma and 51 clinical team members elicited 2 overarching requirements: that the portal should support sustained communication and ensure patient safety. Parents and clinicians prioritized features including collecting parent and child concerns and goals; symptom, side effect, and medication adherence tracking with decision support; and accessible educational materials. Iterative usability testing refined the system. MyAsthma provides a model for using technology to foster shared decision making in ambulatory care settings.

Figure 1. The MyAsthma Portal Parent Interface- Homepage

The MyAsthma Portal parent homepage includes parent and child treatment goals, concerns, and a timeline of monthly check-in survey results regarding asthma symptoms, side effects, medication adherence, progress toward goals, and management of concerns. Parent and child educational content, the asthma care plan, and contact information for the clinical team can be reached using the navigator tabs. In order to make the portal accessible to individuals who were color blind, we used text to display the responses to each survey question by month in the timeline. In later versions of the portal, we have included the option of viewing the portal in gray scale. ©2014 The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.

Figure 2. Previous Portal Design

This portal design was used in early usability testing.