Developing Implementation Strategies to Support the Uptake of a Risk Tool to Aid Physicians in the Clinical Management of Patients With Syncope: Systematic Theoretical and User-Centered Design Approach

Geneviève Rouleau; Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy; Kelly Wu; Bahareh Ghaedi; Phuong Anh Nguyen; Laura Desveaux

doi:10.2196/44089

Developing Implementation Strategies to Support the Uptake of a Risk Tool to Aid Physicians in the Clinical Management of Patients With Syncope: Systematic Theoretical and User-Centered Design Approach

JMIR Hum Factors. 2023 Jun 13:10:e44089. doi: 10.2196/44089.

Authors

Geneviève Rouleau^{1

2}, Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy^{3

4}, Kelly Wu¹, Bahareh Ghaedi⁴, Phuong Anh Nguyen⁴, Laura Desveaux^{5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care, Women's College Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² Nursing Department, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Saint-Jérôme, QC, Canada.
³ Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁴ Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁵ Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners, Mississauga, ON, Canada.
⁶ Women's College Research Institute, Women's College Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁷ Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.

PMID: 37310783
PMCID: PMC10337431
DOI: 10.2196/44089

Abstract

Background: The Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS) was developed to improve syncope management in emergency department settings. Evidence-based tools often fail to have the intended impact because of suboptimal uptake or poor implementation.

Objective: In this paper, we aimed to describe the process of developing evidence-based implementation strategies to support the deployment and use of the CSRS in real-world emergency department settings to improve syncope management among physicians.

Methods: We followed a systematic approach for intervention development, including identifying who needs to do what differently, identifying the barriers and enablers to be addressed, and identifying the intervention components and modes of delivery to overcome the identified barriers. We used the Behaviour Change Wheel to guide the selection of implementation strategies. We engaged CSRS end users (ie, emergency medicine physicians) in a user-centered design approach to generate and refine strategies. This was achieved over a series of 3 qualitative user-centered design workshops lasting 90 minutes each with 3 groups of emergency medicine physicians.

Results: A total of 14 physicians participated in the workshops. The themes were organized according to the following intervention development steps: theme 1-identifying and refining barriers and theme 2-identifying the intervention components and modes of delivery. Theme 2 was subdivided into two subthemes: (1) generating high-level strategies and developing strategies prototypes and (2) refining and testing strategies. The main strategies identified to overcome barriers included education in the format of meetings, videos, journal clubs, and posters (to address uncertainty around when and how to apply the CSRS); the development of a web-based calculator and integration into the electronic medical record (to address uncertainty in how to apply the CSRS); a local champion (to address the lack of team buy-in); and the dissemination of evidence summaries and feedback through email communications (to address a lack of evidence about impact).

Conclusions: The ability of the CSRS to effectively improve patient safety and syncope management relies on broad buy-in and uptake across physicians. To ensure that the CSRS is well positioned for impact, a comprehensive suite of strategies was identified to address known barriers.

Keywords: emergency medicine; physicians; qualitative research; risk management; syncope; user-centered design.

©Geneviève Rouleau, Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy, Kelly Wu, Bahareh Ghaedi, Phuong Anh Nguyen, Laura Desveaux. Originally published in JMIR Human Factors (https://humanfactors.jmir.org), 13.06.2023.