Background/Purpose:  Custom-built software applications (apps) have become an integral part of medical practice today to help physicians be more efficient. They are being widely used for diagnostic purposes and for monitoring chronic conditions. In rheumatology, medical apps may help health professionals track disease activity and aid treatment decision in real-time to achieve optimal patient outcomes. The objective was to assess the need of a digital disease tracker to monitor disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Methods:  A needs assessment survey of Canadian rheumatologists was conducted in the spring of 2015. Our goals were to understand their views about Treat to Target strategies, and their perceptions of digital trackers to provide benefit to their patients and practice.

Results:  Of 410 surveys sent via Survey Monkey, we received 70 responses (17% response rate). Responders were representative of the distribution of rheumatologists in Canada with the majority being in Ontario and Quebec. Among responders, 67% had practiced for 15 to 20 years and were serving predominantly urban patient populations (86%). The majority (56%) utilize both paper and electronic medical records (EMR). An additional 31% use EMR only. The vast majority (87%) accessed EMR via desktop/laptop computer with only 15.7% also utilizing tablets or smart phones. Clinical practice guidelines were widely used (87%) to make treatment decisions. CRA guidelines were mostly commonly selected, followed by ACR then EULAR. Treat to target strategies were employed by 92.86% of respondents, with swollen joint count (85.94%), physician global assessment (69.35%) and patient global assessment (57.14%) being the most common targets while DAS28 (45.45%) and SDAI (42%) were used less frequently . Over 80% of respondents do not use an RA disease tracking tool at this time. However 54.3% of respondents were very interested in having access to an efficient, user-friendly electronic device or app to help assess RA patients’ disease activity at each visit, and track it over time. Many strongly believed such an app would benefit their practice (48.57%) and their patients (44.93%) and felt it was very important that the tracker be integrated with EMR (62.86%). Similar to accessing EMRs most respondents selected desktop/laptop as their preferred device for use of a digital RA Tracker.

Conclusion: Our survey found that most Rheumatologist apply Treat to Target strategies but are not currently using an RA disease tracking tools in their practice. An easy to use digital RA disease assessment tracker may be of value to Rheumatologists in Canada.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/disease-activity-trackers-to-support-treat-to-target-strategies-a-needs-assessment-survey/