Posted by Chintan Ghate, Software Engineer, and Diana Mincu, Research Engineer, Google Research
As consumer technologies like fitness trackers and mobile phones become more widely used for health-related data collection, there is an opportunity to leverage these data pathways to study and advance our understanding of medical conditions. In our previous work, we explored the use of this technology in the context of chronic diseases, specifically multiple sclerosis (MS). We utilized the FDA MyStudies platform, an open-source platform for creating clinical study apps, to facilitate the collection of high-quality healthcare data in a trusted and safe manner. Today, we will discuss the setup we developed by expanding the FDA MyStudies platform and demonstrate how it can be used to establish a digital health study. We will also introduce our research study, MS Signals, which includes a symptom tracking app for MS patients. The goals of this app are to improve the study creation experience on the FDA MyStudies platform and to explore how new data collection mechanisms can revolutionize chronic disease management and tracking for patients. To support the community in building their own studies, we have open sourced our extension to the FDA MyStudies platform under the Apache 2.0 license.
Expanding the FDA MyStudies platform:
To simplify the study creation process and enhance study engagement, we made several accessibility changes to the FDA MyStudies platform. These improvements include:
1. Cross-platform app generation using Flutter, an open-source framework by Google for building multi-platform applications from a single codebase.
2. Streamlined setup for quick prototyping (usually under a day).
3. Emphasis on accessibility to ensure diverse patient voices are heard.
Enhancements for system accessibility:
To make the platform more accessible for all users, we implemented the following usability enhancements:
1. Light and dark theme support.
2. Bold text and variable font sizes.
3. High-contrast mode.
4. Improved user awareness of accessibility settings.
Enhancements for study accessibility:
To enhance the usability of the study itself and reduce cognitive overload, we made the following changes:
1. Clarified onboarding process for participants.
2. Improved questionnaire design for better readability and visual aesthetics.
MS Signals prototype study:
To test the usability of these changes, we created a prototype study app called MS Signals, which utilizes surveys to gather information about MS-related symptoms. The study app includes the following features:
1. Eligibility and study comprehension questionnaire to ensure participants understand the study protocol.
2. Activities page listing available questionnaires for participants to complete.
3. Dashboard area displaying a summary of participants’ responses in graph or pie chart form.
4. Resources section with useful links, help articles, and common questions related to MS.
Questionnaire design:
To minimize cognitive overload and participant drop-off, we implemented the following strategies:
1. Breaking down large questionnaires into smaller ones.
2. Presenting questions in a similar way to how a clinician would ask them during an in-clinic setting.
3. Making previously entered information readily available in the app.
We collaborated with clinicians and researchers to finalize the wording and layout of the survey content. Instead of using the Likert scale, we defined a more intuitive verbose scale to provide a better experience for participants and enable researchers to gather more detailed information about symptoms.
By leveraging consumer technologies and expanding the FDA MyStudies platform, we aim to revolutionize chronic disease management and improve our understanding of medical conditions like multiple sclerosis.
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