Improving Acceptance and Adoption of Informatics Tools: Acute Cardiac Care

Abstract

Medical decision-support tools such as those for acute cardiac ischemia (ACI) (the ACI-Time-Insensitive Predictive Instrument [ACI-TIPI]) have demonstrated statistical validity and clinical impact for patient safety but have seen limited adoption and use by clinicians. The goals of this study were (1) to understand the ACI diagnosis decision process and to identify “barriers” to the acceptance and use of the ACI-TIPI by clinicians; and (2) to develop and test the effectiveness of a brief web-based “demystifying” ACI-TIPI tutorial in removing these barriers. The tutorial had a significant effect on many of these barriers with the tutorial-educated physician group reporting greater awareness and understanding of the ACI-TIPI risk-assessment score; more confidence in the score; and greater perceived usefulness, and use, of the score. The ultimate product is not only strategies for promoting use of the ACI-TIPI, but also validated methods for designing such informatics tools for adoption in a multitude of medical domains.