Joshua Kemp, PhD
Awards
Advance-CTR Pilot Projects Program (Cycle 6)
"Stakeholder-Driven Development of a Smart Provider Directory"
Online provider directories (PDs) are an essential element of the integrated Health IT infrastructure, but they have been plagued by issues concerning accuracy and cost of maintenance. Oftentimes there are inaccuracies in provider contact information, practice locations and insurance plan coverage. These errors make it difficult for treatment-seeking individuals to access health services and sometimes put individuals at risk of incurring extra financial burden due to unexpected out-of-network costs. The consequences of inaccurate PDs are especially pronounced for mental health services. A recent survey found 44% of individuals used a PD to locate mental health services and 53% of those individuals encountered inaccuracies; those who encountered inaccuracies were four times more likely to receive a surprise bill for out-of-network services.
The goals of this project are to design and test the initial feasibility of an online "Smart Directory" for mental health services that is more accurate than existing online directories and incorporates input from treatment-seeking stakeholders. Treatment-seeking parents (N= 12-14) parents of anxious youth awaiting outpatient services will complete an online case vignette to study their online search behaviors and they will reflect on their experience during a semi-structured interview. Their feedback will be used to design a web application prototype intended to enhance user experience when connected to the Smart Directory database. Concurrently, a series of web scrapers will be employed to gather data from existing directories and integrate that information in a tailored database. Finally, the accuracy of the Smart Directory will be tested against constituent directories that were scraped to seed the Smart Directory. The pilot information from this project is essential for applying to larger development funds to build out the remaining functionality of the Smart Directory.