Advancing RA Disease Activity Management Using Principles of Design Thinking (ADAPT)

Goal: The goal of the ADAPT (Advancing RA Disease Activity Management Using Principles of Design Thinking) project is to create a novel method to facilitate a treat-to-target strategy for  RA patients in clinical practice. Target Population: Short term, the target population includes rheumatologists at an academic and safety-net hospital and their RA patients. The tools developed as part of this project will be broadly applicable and will be disseminated to improve the implementation of T2T approaches nationally.  Project: The project entails (1) implementing an electronic-record-based tool that will record  tender and swollen joint counts and automatically calculate disease activity measure scores; (2)  developing a user-friendly interface for presenting disease activity data and targets to patients  and clinicians in collaboration with a professional design team; (3) testing the combination of  these improvements in data entry, management, and presentation in a interrupted-time-series  trial in two rheumatology clinics.  Evaluation: The success of the overall (combination) intervention will be evaluated based on  the proportion of RA patient visits in which disease activity and target information were  provided to the patient. Additional outcomes will include the proportion of visits where disease  activity score was documented in the electronic health record (performance on a nationally  endorsed quality measure) and the proportion of visits in which patients had disease activity  scores of “low” or “remission” (achievement of T2T).