The MI-HEART Project: Information Technology (IT) for One-to-One Tailored Patient Communication
Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: Objective: To report on the how-to of the tailoring strategies used in the MI-HEART project. Background and Significance: Tailored communications are defined as any combination of strategies and information intended for one specific person, based on characteristics that are unique to that person, related to the outcome of interest, and derived from individual assessment. The promise is that communications tailored to variations that exist between different individuals on factors known to influence health related decisions and behaviors will be superior to mass produced materials that consist of generic health information. The first generation of empirical studies testing tailored communications against generic materials has generally shown this to be the case. In health education, studies have shown that tailored materials are more effective than non-tailored ones in helping individuals change behaviors such as smoking, diet, physical activity, cancer and cholesterol screening. How Tailoring Works in MI-HEART: The MIHEART application is essentially an expert system that utilizes empirically based decision rules for selecting an appropriate from a database of stored messages, referred to as the message library (Figure 1). The basis for the selection of a is the tailoring variables and their values in an individual's data record. The individual's data record is populated from the patient's medical record, supplemented by an on-line questionnaire completed by each participant at baseline. We constructed the online tailoring questionnaire to obtain measurements for each individual's status on the variables underlying the decision to seek help when responding to AMI symptoms. The selection of these variables was based on an explicit theoretically derived decision-making model for responding to AMI symptoms, described in detail elsewhere. We included all the variables in our decision model with a wide enough range of response options to capture most of the variation among individuals. Variations in responses to these measures provide the basis for tailoring our communications in that each response item for each measure is linked by a decision rule to a unique communication. Writing tailored messages for MI-HEART required the authoring of hundreds of different text messages and graphics for each variable and response option. The process demanded effectively translating the background research and underlying decision model into communications to favorably influence each cognitive variable for a particular individual at varying stages of decision-making. Figure 1: MI-HEART Message Library
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2271492036