A Personalized Dashboard to Educate Veterans at Risk of Stroke

Personalized risk communication methods have been used to educate patients that are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease. These methods include personalized counseling, printed brochures and individualized graphs describing the status of the risk factors. Very few studies have provided an interactive tool for patients to self-manage their risk factors and observe the changes in risk by making lifestyle changes and modifying other risk factors by seeking medical advice. This Rapid Response Project (RRP) builds upon these methods of communication by presenting the modifiable risk factors in the form of a personalized dashboard that highlights the contribution of these risk factors on the risk of developing a cardiovascular event. The modifiable risk factors that will be addressed in this study will include medical and lifestyle risk factors. The medical risk factors are hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia whereas the lifestyle risk factor is tobacco use. Our primary goal is to develop a prototype of the dashboard to educate patients and help them make informed decisions in modifying their risk factors to reduce the probability of a cardiovascular event or stroke. We will also evaluate the effectiveness of this tool by asking these patients to return after 6 months to determine if they have made any lifestyle changes or pursued medical intervention to reduce their cardiovascular risk. We will make qualitative observations on the knowledge retention of these patients while using the interactive dashboard.