Information Triggers & Consumer-Reported Data
By Josh Seidman | Popularity: 10%In an information therapy (Ix) world, every data source is a potential information trigger. That is, each piece of information that we have on a particular person tells us something about the information he or she needs at a particular time to make a better health decision or lead a healthier life.
A sophisticated health information technology (HIT) application like an electronic health record (EHR) obviously provides a rich source of Information triggers. But something as simple as demographic information can be a starting point (e.g., your age and sex can be used by a tool like the federal government’s HealthFinder to prescribe prevention plans for you).
The more data sources we have, the better we can pinpoint the information prescription to your moment in care and your individual needs and circumstances. We can build algorithms around the data available and generate a series of system-triggered information prescriptions that meet your needs. Depending on the particular situation, this Ix can be: just sent directly to you (and your support network); sent via your clinicians; or cc’ed to them to facilitate participatory medicine.
Perhaps the most powerful information trigger is data collected directly from the consumer. The best way to guarantee that the Ix is personalized is to collect critical information from that individual. That could be answers to very specific questions that suggest where, for example, someone is along the stages of behavior change.
But valuable information can come from the most basic of questions. IxAction Alliance members like Health Dialog have for years been promoting the idea of patient report of functional status as a key information trigger. Others have suggested similar or even more basic questions about “how are you feeling today?”
All of these consumer-reported data points are so informative in helping us to deliver tailored information at the right time.
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March 31st, 2009 at 9:21 am
[…] made considerable use of information triggers to determine which Kaiser members to target, the particular information needs of each member, and […]
April 8th, 2009 at 8:06 am
[…] have created increasingly refined methods for mining data sources that can be viewed as “information triggers.” These data points — and the best ones are often those that… but can also come from EHRs, lab values, pharmacy data, etc. — tell us something specific […]