Investigators
Amar Das - Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Informatics) and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford School of Medicine

This project will develop and evaluate new software called e-Preference, which will be designed to integrate health decision aids for older adults into electronic medical records when patients are faced with complex healthcare decisions. In this study, participants will be given a hypothetical scenario that they have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. They will be asked to access their personal health information through the Palo Alto Medical Foundation online with a link to information on atrial fibrillation and a treatment using warfarin, with an option to activate a tool known as a health decision aid.

The health decision aid will allow patients to input their preferences for potential outcomes (in this case, warfarin vs. no warfarin) and review the results of a decision analysis based on the probability of each outcome. Their reactions to using the software will be recorded. A convenience sample of physicians will also be surveyed on the use of e-Preference. These patient and physician evaluations will be used to make any necessary modifications.

This study is a seed project for the Center on Advancing Decision Making for Aging.

Contact
Tamara L. Sims