PathMate2: The Impact of Health Information System Services on the Effects of Therapy in Overweight Teenagers

Problem In Switzerland, 20% of children are overweight and novel methods are urgently needed to control the epidemic. Foundations of chronic diseases develop during childhood and track into adulthood obesity in more than 75% of patients, contributing to a significant increase in public health costs.

Multi-professional programs combining physical activity, nutritional and behavioral components have positive effects on therapy outcomes and co-morbidities, but these interventions induce high costs and are time-consuming for health providers, patients and families, in particular those living in rural regions. In fact, less than 0.2% of overweight children can participate in these programs. Thus, health information systems (HIS) have not only the potential to improve outcomes of obesity therapy but also to reduce health costs and increase access to health care in remote regions. Most HIS have indeed not been evaluated in this regard.

Preparation work In the PathMate project (SNF grant #135552), a mobile HIS has been developed for teenagers to support therapy and to prevent obesity in accordance with state-of-the-art multiprofessional programs and, in contrast to commercially available IT applications, with a high standard of data protection and safety. The IS effects of this HIS have been successfully evaluated in first longitudinal studies. In parallel, the impact of multi-professional therapies in Swiss children as well as potential confounders have been established in several longitudinal cohort studies with up to two-years follow-up.

Objectives

The overall goal of PathMate2 is to assess the impact of HIS services on the degree of obesity measured by the body mass index (BMI) incl. other health outcomes. Individual and shared understanding between patients and therapists are assessed as mediating factors. Specific goals are: