sieds presentation 4-26

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Optimizing Multi-Channel Health Information Delivery

for Behavioral ChangeSponsor: Locus Health

Michael Buhl, James Famulare, Chris Glazier, Jennifer Harris, Alan McDowell, Greg Waldrip Advisors: Laura E. Barnes and Matthew GerberUniversity of Virginia, Department of Systems and Information Engineering

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Executive SummaryImplemented and tested content personalization methods for a third-party software with a UVA student population• Machine Learning Methods outperformed Random

Selection, but experiment lacked power to determine best personalization method• Post-Hoc Survey indicated that using daily

reminders increased system interaction (97%), but did not support behavioral change (11%)

Recommend expansion of study and system functionality

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Benefits of Telehealth• Reduction in readmissions rates by 51% for

heart failure and 44% for other illnesses (Veterans Health Administration) [1]• No difference in efficacy between virtual and

in-person care over 8,000 patient study [2]• Estimated return of $3.30 for every

$1 spent on telecare (Geisinger Health Plan) [1]

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To maximize patient health through

telehealth system

To decrease 30 day hospital readmission

ratesTo maximize patient

engagement

Objectives Tree

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Behavioral Change Support System DesignRespond

to information or question cards

SMS or Email

Random Content

Receive Awards

Interaction Data Recorded

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To maximize patient health through

telehealth application

To decrease 30 day hospital readmission

ratesTo maximize patient

engagement

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To maximize patient engagement

To maximize frequency of page

visits

Consecutive Login Rate

% of days consecutively

logged in

Open Email Rate

% of total emails opened

Dwell Time

Total time spent on cards

To maximize effectiveness of

cards

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To maximize patient engagement

To maximize frequency of page

visits

Consecutive Login Rate

% of days consecutively

logged in

Open Email Rate

% of total emails opened

Dwell Time

Total time spent on cards


cards

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cards

To maximizing the effectiveness of

information cards

Response Rate % of total cards

responded to

To maximize the effectiveness of

questionnaire cards

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cards

To maximizing the effectiveness of

information cards


responded to

To maximize the effectiveness of

questionnaire cards

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To maximize the effectiveness of questionnaire

cards

To increase medical usage rates

Daily Habit Rate % of healthy card responses

To increase other healthy habit rates

Daily Habit Rate % of healthy card responses

To maximize the number of card

interaction


responded to

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Literature ReviewMorrison’s (2015) psychology theory research suggests targeting content to improve digital health behavioral systems [3]Recommender Systems and Regression Analysis personalize content• Recommender Systems use inferred ratings of viewed

content to estimate ratings of unviewed content [4]• Ratings based on user characteristics (collaborative filtering) or

content characteristics (content-based filtering) [4]• Regression Analysis identify statistically significant

correlations between demographic information, internet behaviors, and contextual data and metrics [5]

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Behavioral Change Support System DesignRespond

to information or question cards

SMS or Email

Receive Awards

Interaction Data Recorded

Data Exported

ContentStrategiesDetermined

StrategiesUpdated inSystem

Targeted Content

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Surveyed Systems

Engineering Student

Population

Study Group Randomize

Content

Control Group

Randomize Content

Regression Group

Target Content

Collaborative Filtering Group

Target Content

Experimental Design: Student Exercise Study

n = 15 n = 14 n = 15

Week 1

n = 44

Week 2

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Preliminary Results: Week 1• Over half of participants responded to

content (58.4%)• A majority of users logged in on

consecutive days (64.9%)• Most users opened daily email

reminders to access system (71.5%)• Participants spent an average of 32.5

seconds in the system per 5 cards

Data informed Week 2 content targeting strategies

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Models: RegressionRegressed 5 metrics on 17 predictors based on user and card characteristics, looking for statistically significant and actionable predictors

• Regression indicated significant negative correlation between response rate and information cards

We removed fact-based and non-fact based information cards to test these results over Week 2 for the Regression group

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Card1 Card2 Card3 Card4 Card5User1 2 3 0 2User2 3 1 2 3User3 1 2 3 2

Card score determined implicitly by set of rules that rewards users for card interactions:• First week average Card Score: 1.88 out of a

max of 3

Models: Collaborative Filtering

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Card1 Card2 Card3 Card4 Card5User1 2 3 0 2User2 3 1 2 3User3 1 2 3 2

Goal: Fill in the blanks

Card1 Card2 Card3 Card4 Card5User1 .25 1.25 -1.75 .25User2 .75 -1.25 -.25 .75User3 -1 0 1 0

Normalized ratings used to calculate user similarity

Sim(1, 2) = .95Sim(1, 3) = -.57 Sim(2, 3) = -.76


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Card1 Card2 Card3 Card4 Card5User1 2 3 0 2 2.2User2 2.8 3 1 2 3User3 1 2 3 2 2

Card1 Card2 Card3 Card4 Card5User1 .25 1.25 -1.75 .25User2 .75 -1.25 -.25 .75User3 -1 0 1 0

Sim(1, 2) = .95Sim(1, 3) = -.57 Sim(2, 3) = -.76


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User1Card2 3Card5 2.2Card1 2Card4 2Card3 0

User1Card2Card5Card1Card4

Card2

Card1

Sort cards by score and create top N rankingRandomly draw X cards from that list everyday


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•We evaluated three collaborative filtering methods, where each used a different method to infer unknown card scores• Based on cross validation, item-based

collaborative filtering provided the lowest RMSE • Method results provided basis for

collaborative filtering user group in Week 2 testing


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Week 2 Results: Metrics

Content Targeting yielded higher response and consecutive login rates than Random Selection, but experiment lacked statistical significance to determine best personalization method.

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Post-Study Survey ResultsAll 44 users completed a post-study questionnaire to evaluate system and experimental efficacy • Suggested improvements• Inhibit simply clicking through questions• Increase goal setting implementations or

incentives• Increase content diversity

• Endorsed features• Email notifications• System usability

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Preferred Mechanism Of Communication

• Participants preferred email notifications over text messages

• 3% of participants did not want daily reminders

3%

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Likelihood To Exercise More Due To Study Participation

• 11% of participants felt the study increased their likelihood to exercise more

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Increase In Access To System During Second Week Of

Study

• 23% of participants felt they used the system more in the second week

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Limitations• Experiment size limited significance• Non-medical population proved a poor

proxy• Lack of content variation negatively

impacted collaborative filtering effectiveness

• System Shortcomings• No method to prevent rapid clicking

through cards• Top card lists did not automatically update

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Future Work• Expand experiment scale to validate

targeting method• Use large non-homogeneous medical

population • Create larger, more diverse content base

• Improve content targeting process• Automate collaborative filtering process• Increase effectiveness of information cards

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ConclusionsImplemented and tested content personalization methods for a third-party software with a UVA student population• Machine Learning Methods outperformed Random

Selection, but experiment lacked power to determine best personalization method• Post-Hoc Survey indicated that using daily

reminders increased system interaction (97%), but did not support behavioral change (11%)

Recommend expansion of study and system functionality

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References[1] The Promise of Telehealth For Hospitals, Health Systems and their Communities. 2015. http://www.aha.org/research/reports/tw/15jan-tw-telehealth.pdf [2] Telemedicine Guide: Telemedicine Statistics. 2016. evisit.com/what-is-telemedicine/#13 [3] Morrison, Leanne G. “Theory-based Strategies for enhancing the Impact and Usage of Digital Health Behavior Changer Interventions: A Review.” Digital Health 1, no. 1 (2015): 1-10. [4] Rajaraman, Anand, Ullman, J. “Recommendation Systems.” Mining of massive datasets 1 (2012). [5] Drive Higher Conversions by Personalizing the Website Content Based on the Visitor. 2016. http://www.hebsdigital.com/ourservices/smartcms-modules/dynamic-content-personalization.

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Appendix

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Card Scoring method

• +1 point for information card response• +0.5 points for question card response, +0.5

points for healthy question card response• +1 point for time spent on cards > 30• +1 point for consecutive visit to cards on the day

before • First week average Card Score: 1.88 [1.82, 1.93]

State of Mental Health in the US• 1 in 4 adults

experience mental illness each year

• Only 40% receive treatment

• 55% of 3,100 counties have no practicing mental healthcare workers

• Telemental health is a viable solution

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Literature Review• Existing telehealth applications employ basic, rule-

based content targeting methods• Morrison’s (2015) psychology theory research suggests

targeting content to improve digital health behavioral systems • Regression models and machine learning applications

use demographic information, internet behaviors, and contextual data to target content• Recommender systems, an application of machine

learning, of interest due to use in current content targeting systems (i.e. Netflix) and ability to be automated

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1 2 3 4 51 0 0.5 -0.52 0.167 0.167 -0.333 0.75 -0.25 -0.25 -0.25

0.75

-0.75

0-0.25

0.251 2 3 4 5

1 0 0.5 -0.52 0.167 0.167 -0.333 0.75 -0.25 -0.25 -0.25

Users

Cards

User responds to question and information

cards

Scores calculated by

executing card scoring algorithm

Cross validation

selects best collaborativ

e filter

Best collaborativ

e filter computes user card rankings

System randomly draws 5

cards from top 10

ranking

sieds presentation 4-26

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