Lung Transplant Clinicians’ Perceptions of Pocket PATH Synergy, an Interactive Health Technology (IHT) to Monitor Patients Remotely

Abstract

Purpose PocketPATH Synergy (PPS) is an IHT that combines customized smartphone software (PocketPATH: Personal Assistant for Tracking Health) with PocketPATH Link, a clinician website, to share data collected through the smartphone app between lung transplant recipients (LTR) and the transplant team. The success of PPS depends on clinicians' adoption of the website. Before possible full-scale deployment, our aims were to assess clinicians' intention to use the website, their actual use, and perceptions regarding its usability and acceptability. Methods All 22 members of the lung transplant team (including surgeons, pulmonologists, nurses) were invited to participate. Responders were oriented to the website and asked about their intention to use the website. After the website was deployed, clinicians were followed prospectively as they monitored data from 27 LTRs uploaded in real-time to the website over a 2-month period. Clinicians were instructed to view the website at will. At the end of the 2-months, clinicians were sent an on-line survey including the Perceived Ease of Use and Usefulness scales and open-ended questions related to acceptability of the website (benefits and barriers). Results 18/22 (88%) agreed to use the website (physicians 11, nurses 7). Over the 2 months, 2/11 (18%) of physicians logged in at least once and 4/18 (22%) of professionals (all nurses) met the threshold of weekly log-ins. 15/18 (83%) completed the post-survey regardless of whether they logged-in to the website. Over 85% agreed that the website was useful and easy to use. The most commonly cited benefits were to: monitor patients between visits (92%) and identify potential problems early (83%). The most common barriers were: too busy to use the website (83%), interruption of workflow (75%), forgot log-in (50%), and inconvenient to log-on to another website besides the electronic health record (EHR) (33%). Conclusion Clinicians' intention to use, perceived usability and acceptability of the website were favorable, but actual use was low. Future work should integrate data into the EHR and use of the website into clinicians' workflow. Data suggest that as barriers are resolved, assessment of how PPS impacts clinical management will be a crucial next step. Funding: NR010711