Community engagement to pilot electronic patient-reported outcomes (e-PROs) in early intervention: Lessons learned

Electronic data capture is essential to advancing family-centered coordinated care in early intervention (EI). The purpose of this paper is to report on EI service coordinator response to piloting an electronic parent-reported outcome (e-PRO) assessment as part of their routine workflow, including lessons learned that may inform future phases of e-PRO implementation.

This second pilot study involved families enrolled in a large EI program (n=1040 families) in concert with their implementation of a statewide quality improvement initiative for care plan development and outcomes reporting. A total of 22 EI service coordinators and supervisors were engaged in three phases: initial e-PRO intervention, peer mentor enhancement, and standard recruitment protocol.

Implementation of the e-PRO intervention and peer mentoring enhancement yielded low enrollment rates over the first six months (n=17). A standard recruitment protocol has resulted in enrollment growth (n=83) towards the targeted enrollment rate (n=832).

This study reports on early insights for building and sustaining a productive academic-community partnership for e-PRO implementation to support family-centered coordinated care. Lessons learned from this academic-community partnership with respect to strategies for enhancing community significance, collaboration, return, and control are discussed as they inform further development of this intervention prior to scale-up.