Pilot Study of a Diabetes Prevention Patient Activation Clinical Decision Support Tool

Patient activation, which incorporates elements of self-efficacy and readiness to change, is particularly important in managing conditions like pre-diabetes, where the mainstay of treatment is behavioral lifestyle change and self-management. Unfortunately, Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) often do not have adequate training on how to promote patient activation. Traditionally, patient decision aids are used in shared decision-making to help elicit patient preferences and guide treatment options. However, the guides primarily focus on reviewing treatment options rather than increasing patient activation, which is key to successful and efficient behavioral counseling. The Patient Activation Measure (PAM) is a widely used and validated patient-reported outcome measure for assessing patient activation. Studies have demonstrated that using PAM to tailor care to a patient's activation level decreased health service utilization while improving clinical outcomes like blood pressure and self-management behaviors.

The investigators overarching goal is to increase the percentage of patients engaging in diabetes prevention activities to reduce the incidence of diabetes. The investigators objective is to design and pilot test a pre-diabetes clinical decision support (CDS) tool in the electronic health record (EHR) that will assess the patient's activation level based on responses to a questionnaire. Based on the patient's assessed level of activation, the tool will generate several communication recommendations to guide clinicians in conversations related to pre-diabetes/lifestyle change and tailor recommendations about available resources (e.g., care manager, health coach, DPP) to support patient activation.