An Assessment of the Potential for Personalization in Patient Decision Aids

Abstract

An increasing number ofpatient decision aids are being developed to assist patients in making personalized choices among health care options, but little is known about the current use of and potential for personalization of web-based decision aids. The purpose of this study is to estimate the potential for personalization of patient decision aids. We developed a coding scheme for personalization and analyzed web-based patient decision aids from all relevant developers according to the scheme. The most relevant subgroups of users and the current representation of the groups in the tools were identified. We then identified system behavior relevant to web personalization, and instances of adaptive system behaviors.The decision aids included in this study exhibit four out of five classes of system behavior eligible for personalization. With few exceptions, the tools do not contain automatic, adaptive behavior. Patient decision aids hold potential for web personalization. Relevant techniques are largely unexplored.