Health Service Decision Toolbox (HSDT): Delivering the Right Treatment to the Right Patient with Health Information Technology and Data Analytics

The amount of data being digitally collected and stored by health information technology (health IT) is vast and expanding rapidly. How to convert this huge amount of resources into knowledge that can facilitate delivering the right intervention to the right patient, or how to bridge the gap between prevention research and practice, remain unclear. The objective of this study is to develop a Health Service Decision Toolbox (HSDT) that enables healthcare providers to integrate vast data sources collected by Health IT to improve confidence in decisions of whether or not to adopt an evidence-based intervention. HSDT can guide users through feeding massive health related data into several major input groups, such as healthcare providers, patient population, and intervention procedures. With the HSDT, we can successfully project specific impacts, because of additional tailoring to fit each organization/patient population's unique circumstances. When such tailoring combined with an interactive visualization environment, it would further increase decision makers' confidence. We illustrate the use of HSDT with a case study of delivering Transitional Care Model (TCM) to the most needed hospitals. TCM is a proven care management approach that is designed and tested by University of Pennsylvania via multiple NIH funded clinical trials.