title: An Integrated Model for Patient Care and Clinical Trials (IMPACT) to support clinical research visit scheduling workflow for future learning health systems.
abstract: We describe a clinical research visit scheduling system that can potentially coordinate clinical research visits with patient care visits and increase efficiency at clinical sites where clinical and research activities occur simultaneously. Participatory Design methods were applied to support requirements engineering and to create this software called Integrated Model for Patient Care and Clinical Trials (IMPACT). Using a multi-user constraint satisfaction and resource optimization algorithm, IMPACT automatically synthesizes temporal availability of various research resources and recommends the optimal dates and times for pending research visits. We conducted scenario-based evaluations with 10 clinical research coordinators (CRCs) from diverse clinical research settings to assess the usefulness, feasibility, and user acceptance of IMPACT. We obtained qualitative feedback using semi-structured interviews with the CRCs. Most CRCs acknowledged the usefulness of IMPACT features. Support for collaboration within research teams and interoperability with electronic health records and clinical trial management systems were highly requested features. Overall, IMPACT received satisfactory user acceptance and proves to be potentially useful for a variety of clinical research settings. Our future work includes comparing the effectiveness of IMPACT with that of existing scheduling solutions on the market and conducting field tests to formally assess user adoption.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. cw2384@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Chunhua
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Solomon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berhe
authors.forename: Mary Regina
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Boland
authors.forename: Junfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Gregory W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Hruby
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Steinman
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lopez-Jimenez
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Busacca
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hripcsak
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bakken
authors.forename: J Thomas
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Bigger
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D035843:Biomedical Research; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007858:Learning; D017146:Models, Organizational; D005791:Patient Care; D018907:Privacy
keywords: Clinical research informatics; Health resources; Learning health systems; Personnel staffing and scheduling; Software; Workflow