Health Care Problem: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease manifesting in musculoskeletal impairment and subsequent disability, affecting work productivity and quality of life. Without treatment, patients accrue progressive and irreversible structural damage to joints. Imaging has an important role in diagnosis of PsA and in monitoring of treatment efficacy.
The rheumatologists and dermatologists who, together with their patients, work to manage this disease are often time constrained and bombarded with educational and other messaging. They don't regularly use radiographic imaging to assess structural joint damage and the ongoing effect of treatment.
Working with faculty and a third-party claims data, treaters of this condition were identified through billing codes. The numbers of treaters who could benefit from this education were identified and assessed. while most were rheumatologists and dermatologists, we learned that some were primary care treaters caring for patients with PsA in the community setting. By using RWE to deliver not to a homogenous audience of a particular specialty, but to a heterogenous audience determined by inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Educational Strategy: Working with faculty, a set of intervention and reinforcement tool were developed to address the assessed gap. Animation tools were used to visualize structural damage so they could discuss pragmatic issues related to regular and more frequent assessment. Using usage data from the ReachMD platform, it was determined that short form, visually engaging media were most frequently used by dermatology and rheumatology specialists.
To assess the impact of this project on learners’ practice-based process of care, the team selected pre-and post-activity instruments leverage multiple choice, clinical scenario, and “intent to change” formats. Using a proprietary, longitudinal digital assessment tool, learners self-reported adoption of the faculty instruction.
Prova and ReachMD's “time-in-media” measurement was used to transparently report how many learners engaged in the content and for how long. These data sets are pulled early in the project to formatively assess whether recruitment, content, or other changes needed to be made.
Patient-Level Outcome(s) Measured: Once collected and analyzed, the outcomes data will be combined with other third party data from the CDC in order to determine if we met the needs of learners in rural areas, community practices and other "non-academic" settings. RWE was used throughout the project from development to assessment.
