Page - 114 - in Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics - Knowledge Base for Practitioners

1.4. Using health informatics to foster personal health choices and the SDM process: The case of patient decision aids One clear example where boosting applies to health informatics is the design of patient decision aids (PtDAs) aimed at supporting personal health choices and SDM. PtDAs are interventions that “ & ? ” [16, page 1]. PtDAs can be used in preparation for the visit with a clinician, during the visit or individually by the patient, for example in the context of breast screening decisions. When used without input from the clinician, PtDAs aim to support informed choice rather than SDM per se. Even though, to the best of our knowledge, there is no existing case of a health informatics intervention aimed at fostering SDM that explicitly used the boosting framework to inform its design, many existing ways to foster SDM are consistent with the boosting framework. Throughout the remainder of this chapter, we will explicate how the boosting framework applies to existing cases and could be used to further inform future design of health informatics interventions aimed at fostering SDM. In the eHealth era, information technology provides ample opportunities to unlock and share valuable information resources, such as information exchange and supporting patients and their healthcare providers in making well-informed medical decisions that align with what matters most for the person whose values are at stake: the patient. In other words, health informatics has the potential to boost decision making capacity. However, in order to be effective, health informatics interventions need to be well attuned to the way the human mind is wired and to the way the care process takes place. The boosting framework can support the design of health informatics interventions such as tailored text messages, online health information tools and PtDAs. Experimental research showed for instance that messages that were personalized (tailored) to the individual (“boosts”) led to a higher decrease in snacking consumption than non-tailored messages [17]. Research has also revealed that online health information tools are facilitating immediate, intermediate and long-term (including clinical) patient outcomes, even in older patients. In particular those tools that not only provide information, but also have self-management and/or information exchange functions, exactly the functions that can serve as boosts, seemed to be effective [18]. Although % & 9 ". '(=) 9 ". < 9 ". / @ , - # !" & '(A) : , - / # @ 9 ". '+B) 9 ". # ( 6 ( = M.deVriesetal. /FosteringSharedDecisionMakingwithHealth Informatics Interventions114