Mobile Medical Outcomes™ PI Programs

Mobile Medical Outcomes™ is a powerful tool to facilitate the complex process of measuring change in performance and is able to measure and analyze outcomes in any therapeutic area.

Mobile Medical Outcomes™ evolved from a previously successful program to assess lipid goals in a clinical study involving over 500 primary care physicians and 5,000 patients. This program used a Palm™ personal digital assistant device to record the achievement of NCEP ATP III goals, and identified treatment gaps that needed interventions.

Modeled after this program, Mobile Medical Outcomes™ provides an iPod touch™ and custom software to acquire patient outcomes measures for specific educational initiatives. The Mobile Medical Outcomes™ program bypasses the cumbersome need for busy clinicians to find a desktop computer to enter their patient data. With their iPod touch always in hand, clinicians can quickly enter the data at the point of care to ascertain rapid and accurate information.

Performance Improvement Process

Mobile Medical Outcomes PI process diagram

The Performance Improvement Process with Mobile Medical Outcomes™

PI CME studies all follow a similar process with minor variations to satisfy the objectives of the certifying body. For instance, the AMA Council on Medical Education’s rules specify programs that loop on 3 data collections and 2 educational interventions in the above diagram. Participants completing all 3 stages of the AMA PI initiative are eligible to receive 20 AMA PRA Category 1 credits™.

Enroll and Train Participants

Success of a PI CME program depends on the motivation and enthusiasm of the participants. iMD can help ensure the success of your PI program by

Developing recruiting questionnaires that select well-qualified participants.
Authoring promotional materials that clearly explain the advantages of participating in PI programs.
Screening and reviewing recruiting questionnaires to select highly qualified participants.
Following up with prospective participants to ensure they are motivated and committed to your PI program.
Communicating with participants about each stage of the PI program.
Developing live and online training materials.
Developing PI measurement questionnaires with the program faculty to objectively measure the program’s outcomes goals.

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Collect Outcome Data at the Point of Care

The central goal and challenge of PI is collecting many weeks of performance data on medical care. Participants quickly lose motiviation for PI programs with tedious data entry from chart reviews performed long after the patient leaves the office. Or participants delegate the data-entry drudgery to office staff. Both scenarios do not lead to the positive synergy between collecting your own PI data and actually learning and reflecting on how you can improve your patient care.

iMD’s innovative Mobile Medical Outcomes solves these problems by providing participants with an iPod touch that allows them to quickly enter real-time data at the point of care. Entering data with a handheld wireless computer is easy, convenient, fast, and even fun (according to many participants)!

At the point of care, Mobile Medical Outcomes

Automatically administers the correct questionnaires for each stage of the PI study protocol.
Sends notification emails reminding participants when to collect new data.
Displays a real-time To Do list to update participants about their progress in the program.
Uses an intuitive touch-screen to allow rapid data from selection lists or on-screen keyboards.
Provides real-time data validation to ensure accurate data by checking for missing, out-of-range, or incorrectly entered values.
Authenticates all users and authorizes their access to only their own data.
Meets IRB standards for data security with HIPAA, EU Safe Harbor, and other privacy regulations.
Protects against data loss by uploading all data immediately to a secure server. The mobile device stores no data.

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Mentor Program

Mobile Medical Outcomes’ unique and innovative “Ask A Mentor™” connects program participants at the point-of-care with leading medical thought leaders. Participants use the iPod touch to pose their challenging clinical questions to the Mentors and receive a individualized response. Mentors can direct participants to educational interventions, often directly accessible online with the iPod touch’s rich multimedia and communications features. All participants can review their peer’s anonymous questions and learn from the Mentors’ replies.

iMD will

Help select, invite, and train Mentors for the PI study.
Screen, moderate, and triage participants questions to the Mentors.
Post Mentors’ replies to the “Ask A Mentor&rdquo forum.
Notify participants of new Mentor responses.
Moderate follow-up questions and responses.

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Manage PI Study Protocol

PI CME programs, like clinical trials or surveys, require full-time management to ensure successful outcomes. iMD’s staff will

Answer participants’ questions about the PI program.
Check the quality of the collected data.
Monitor data collection and follow up with past-due participants.
Track and document participation in the program to meet certification record-keeping requirements.
Provide support for the PI program hardware and software.
Host the PI delivery platform.

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Analyze Outcomes Data for Performance Gaps

Well-designed PI programs can measure performance at the individual (level 5), patient (level 6), and community (level 7) levels and identify gaps in how health-care providers evaluate and assess patients, in how successfully individual patients health is managed, and in how well all patients in a program are fairing.

iMD’s team, in collaboration with the medical faculty, will

Periodically perform statistical analysis of the study data.
Analyze the data against the PI measurement criteria for performance gaps.
Provide CME providers with PI gap reports so they can prepare educational interventions.
Prepare summary reports about participants, patients, and the community.

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Create and Deliver Targeted Education Based on Outcomes Analysis

The internet is a vast resource for educational content. The iPod touch and iPhone 3G allow for viewing of web content better than any mobile device on the market today. Mobile Medical Outcomes™ can increase the reach of your existing educational content, and deliver it to those who would benefit most from the educational objectives.

Using iMD PI services, design audio and video podcasts based on actual gaps in knowledge, competency and performance as determined by questions posted through the “Ask A Mentor” program, and by quantitative, objective analysis of patient outcomes data.

The Mobile Medical Outcomes™ iPod touch-based platform provides educators