Background: A computerized Intervention-Management-System (IMS) has been developed and implemented to facilitate dementia care management. IMS is a rule-based expert decision support system that matches individual patient characteristics to a computerized knowledge base. One of the most important functionalities of IMS is to support the compilation of the individual intervention plan by systematically identifying unmet needs and suggesting the corresponding specific interventions for recommendation to the general practitioner (GP). The present analysis aimed to determine if the implementation of IMS improves the identification of unmet needs and the recommendation of adequate specific interventions. In addition, the feasibility and acceptability of the IMS were evaluated.
Methods: Delphi-MV is an on-going GP-based, cluster-randomized, controlled intervention trial to implement and evaluate a collaborative dementia care management program for community-dwelling PWDs and their caregivers. IMS was developed and implemented over the course of the DelpHi-trial. The identified unmet needs and the interventions that were recommended to the GP before and after the implementation of IMS were compared. To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the IMS, a survey was conducted among the current users of IMS.
Results and conclusions: After the implementation of IMS, the number of specific interventions recommended to the GP increased by 85%. Our findings provide evidence that IMS improves the systematic identification of unmet needs and the subsequent recommendation of interventions to address these needs. The users evaluated IMS as very helpful and would like to use it for their future work. However, the usability could be further improved.