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Evaluation of Health IT Tools and Resources Available at the AHRQ NRC for Health IT Web Site: Final Report

FINAL 11.15.2011

[Note: Participants will have previously been emailed the questions and consent form to read over before the call]

Thank you for your time today. I'm ____ and I'm from RTI, a non-profit research organization. I am conducting a series of interviews for the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

AHRQ is conducting a needs assessment to understand participants' perceptions of the types of tools and key issues in health literacy that need to be considered if developers and purchasers of health IT are to improve how they address health literacy and, in turn, ensure that consumer health IT is accessible and understandable regardless of literacy level. Your insights are very important to us in this process, and your time today is appreciated. Our discussion will last about 60 minutes.

Before we begin, I want to review a few things:

  • Did you have a chance to read over the consent form that we sent you? [If not, read out loud to participant]. Do you have any questions about it? Do you agree to participate at this time?

    If Yes—continue.

    If No—thank and end.

  • Just to review, your participation is voluntary.
  • Everything we discuss today will be kept private to the extent allowable by law, including AHRQ's confidentiality statute, 42 USC 299c-3 (c). Your name and contact information, which only the study staff knows, will not be given to anyone else and no one will contact you after this interview is over.
  • I will be audio recording our conversation today. The recordings will be used to help me write a summary report and will be kept in a secure location then destroyed at the conclusion of the study. I want to stress that no names will be mentioned in the final report created from these interviews.
  • If at any time you are uncomfortable with my questions, you can choose not to answer. Just let me know that you prefer not to answer.
  • Most importantly, there are no right or wrong answers. I want to know your opinions. I am not an AHRQ staff member, so don't hold back on giving me your honest opinions.
  • Do you have any questions before we begin?

I'd like to start with a definition. We will be discussing consumers throughout our call and I want to make sure we are both working with the same meaning: [Read and refer back if necessary] A consumer can be anyone with a health concern including a patient or a caregiver. Consumers do not include health care providers.

  1. Development tools and resources
    1. What are some tools and/or resources that you have found most useful in helping developers to design health IT applications that will be accessible to consumers with low health literacy? [For each listed] What makes this useful?
    2. Are there some specific tools or resources (or types of tools and resources) that address development of consumer health IT applications for low health literacy that you have found to be particularly unhelpful? Why?
    3. What are some trends in health IT development that would positively impact consumers with limited health literacy skills?
    4. How about trends in health IT development that would positively impact all consumers, regardless of literacy skills? [PROBE on universal design, usability]
    5. What are some considerations to ensure that technologies are accessible and understandable regardless of a consumer's literacy level?
    6. What are some of the most important factors that system developers and designers should consider when developing health IT resources and applications that will be accessible to consumers with low health literacy?
    7. Are there any ‘best practices' that you have encountered regarding development of applications that are accessible for those with low health literacy? If so, what are they and what makes them best practices?
    8. Are there other ways in which you think that developers and others can take health literacy into account as they design health IT applications that will be used by consumers with low literacy?
  1. Purchasing tools and applications
    1. What are some tools and/or resources that you have found most useful in helping purchasers of health IT applications to ensure they are accessible to consumers with low health literacy? [For each listed] What makes this useful?
    2. Are there some specific tools or resources (or types of tools and resources) that are intended to help purchasers of health IT applications for consumers with low health literacy that you have found to be particularly unhelpful? Why?
    3. What are some of the most important factors to consider when purchasing health IT applications that will be accessible to consumers with low health literacy?
    4. Are there any ‘best practices' that you have encountered to help purchasers of applications ensure that they will be accessible for those with low health literacy? If so, what are they and what makes them best practices?
    5. Are there other ways in which you think that purchasers and others can take health literacy into account when selecting applications?
  1. Consumer Health IT
    1. How have rapid advancements in technology and Internet use changed the development of consumer health IT?
    2. How have these advancements affected consumers?
    3. How is the acceleration of health IT acquisition and adoption by providers impacting provider awareness of consumer use of health IT systems and issues related to health literacy?
    4. How can consumer health vocabularies be incorporated into new health IT applications to improve access among consumers with limited literacy?
    5. What are some ways in which the user experience can be further personalized by customizing health information while addressing health literacy?
    6. How important is it for health IT applications (such as a patient portal) to explicitly provide access for non-patients such as providers, family members, and caregivers? What are some barriers to providing this access? What are some facilitators to providing this access?
    7. Do you think that it is important that health IT applications include multidirectional capabilities that enable information to communicated to multiple parties? Why or why not?
    8. Next, I'd like to ask about your thoughts on the potential impact of 3 different factors that promote consumer health IT applications usable by individuals with limited health literacy.
      1. Personalized and tailored health information or content
      2. Information scaffolding [READ if needed: Information scaffolding provides support that allows users to move from one concept or screen to another, building on previous knowledge. For IT, it is used for multiple navigation opportunities for users - so they can go back and read about something they are not sure of or skip a screen/information that they already know. It could also be used to help with word pronunciations and definitions.]
      3. Existing accessibility guidelines
  1. Conclusion
    1. Is there anything else you would like to say about any of the topics we've discussed or about the materials we looked over?

I would like to thank you for your time and opinions today. Your feedback was very useful and will be very helpful to AHRQ.

IF PARTICIPANT WILL BE GETTING INCENTIVE, PLEASE ASK FOR MAILING ADDRESS:

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Page last reviewed July 2013
Page originally created December 2014

Internet Citation: Evaluation of Health IT Tools and Resources Available at the AHRQ NRC for Health IT Web Site: Final Report. Content last reviewed July 2013. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
https://archive.ahrq.gov/research/findings/final-reports/healthitresources/healthit-apd.html

 

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