Health IT Professional - Health IT Focus Group

Attachment T. Health IT Focus Group

Focus Group Interview Guide - Health Information Technology Stakeholders

Form Approved

OMB Control No. 0920-XXXX

Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

Public reporting burden of this collection of information is estimated to average 90 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.  An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB Control Number.  Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to CDC/ATSDR Reports Clearance Officer, 1600 Clifton Road NE, MS D-74, Atlanta, Georgia 30333; ATTN: PRA 0920-XXXX

INTRODUCTION

I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. My name is ____________________________. I work at the Center for Public Health Readiness and Communication at Drexel University and I am working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and colleagues at Drexel to find out how families who have children and youth with special health care needs get the information they need during emergencies and disasters that disrupt their lives or require special actions to protect their health. The goal of this project is to develop guidelines for emergency response agencies, as well as health care and other providers including communication tools to facilitate communication with these high-risk communities. Our focus is on families with children and adolescents who have a range of physical and cognitive challenges, including dependence on assistive technology, chronic medication dependence, behavioral challenges, as well as Autism Spectrum Disorders.

To accomplish these objectives, we’re conducting surveys as well as interviews and focus groups with affected families, health care and social service providers who serve them, and emergency response agencies. We are especially interested in the technological capacity of health care professionals (including medical practices and health care systems) to communicate with their patients during emergencies, as they are trusted sources of information who best understand the needs and challenges of these communities during disasters. We’ve convened this focus group to get your opinions regarding how the health care and social service community might accomplish this and how they might leverage current and new technologies for this purpose.

This session should take no more than 90 minutes. I will be taping the discussion because I don’t want to miss any of your comments. Although I will be taking some notes during the session, I can’t possibly write fast enough to get it all down. Because we’re on tape, please be sure to speak up so that we don’t miss your comments.

All responses will be kept confidential. This means that your interview responses will only be shared with research team members and we will ensure that any information we include in our report does not identify you as the respondent. Remember, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to and you may leave the conversation at any time.

Are there any questions about what I have just explained?

Are you willing to participate in this focus group?

General Questions – Demographics of Participants

To get started, please introduce yourselves. I’d like to get a sense of where each of you work and your title or responsibilities in the organization.

Please note that this is for our records only and no identifying information regarding you or your organization will be a part of our reports.

1. Use of Technology in Health Care Systems for Patient Communication

   1. How do the practices/providers/health systems in which you work use technology to communicate with groups or large numbers of patients simultaneously?

      1. With individual patients?

2. How do patients communicate with providers? (Prompt: how do providers/offices handle multiple simultaneous requests for information from patients?)

3. How do these communications take place during emergencies and disasters when there is a need to convey information urgently?

4. How is social media used? (Which channels, bi-directional, etc.?)

2. Recommendations/Future Applications

   1. How can EMR technologies facilitate communication with patients during emergencies?

2. What do practices and health systems need to improve their capacity to respond to patient requests for information when demand for information exceeds capacity to respond to phone calls and emails, social media messages, etc.

   1. What are barriers?

   2. What are facilitators?

3. Are you aware of technologies in development, perhaps not yet widely used, that health care professionals and organizations could use to facilitate patient-provider communication during emergencies? If so, please elaborate.

4. What are your recommendations for communicating during power outages?

5. What have you seen to be the biggest challenges for practices with respect to communicating with families? Are there success stories or things that you feel predict success with respect to technological solutions for communications that would be useful during emergencies?

Is there anything more you would like to add?

END OF FOCUS GROUP

We’ll use the information you provided today to inform recommendations for communication tools and practices that can be used by health care providers and emergency response agencies to help them communicate during emergencies with families with special health care needs. We’ll also be testing these tools and messages at the end of the project with response agencies, providers, as well as families from our target audiences, to be sure we get feedback from people who need information the most during emergencies and disasters. Thank you for your time.

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