MyStroke for Stroke Survivors and Caregivers

Stroke education represents a unique opportunity to empower stroke survivors (and caregivers) to promote self-management, augment adherence, and reduce post-stroke healthcare utilization. Despite being a key quality metric for stroke centers, most patient and caregiver education is poorly retained and a common source of dissatisfaction. In fact, most survivors are unaware of the cause of their stroke, their modifiable risk factors, and how to properly respond to future stroke symptoms. Although there is no gold standard, most centers rely on a combination of bedside verbal communication and standardized printed materials. Prior work has clarified that effective and durable educational interventions benefit from engaging content, personalization, accessibility, and low cost/burden. Retention is very poor during the stroke hospitalization, but this can be overcome by promoting ongoing engagement after discharge.

To that end, our group developed a web-based educational platform (MyStroke) that leverages the electronic health record to personalize video-based educational content for each stroke survivor. Simple but engaging videos are curated to address each patient's stroke etiology, individualized risk factors, prescribed stroke prevention medications, and post-stroke lifestyle issues. This approach transforms point-of-care stroke education, and integrated nudges reveal opportunities for re-education and re-engagement after hospital discharge to achieve a durable impact. In a recent single-center pilot trial, MyStroke improved patient and caregiver satisfaction and improved key elements of stroke knowledge. The objective of this proposal is to build upon our encouraging preliminary experience and conduct a multicenter randomized trial to evaluate the impact of MyStroke on both patient-centered (stroke knowledge, self-efficacy, satisfaction, quality of life) and health system-centered outcomes (medication adherence and health system utilization).

Electronic nudges will leverage principles of behavioral economics (i.e. enhanced nudges) to promote ongoing engagement. Our preliminary data indicate that even bland nudges promote engagement, but here we propose to use both bland nudges and enhanced nudges, such that platform analytics will compare the influence of different nudge types. Use of technology in this context stands to bridge geographic distances, connect stakeholders, and increase access to information, but it important to recognize the potential to exacerbate inequities for elderly patients and those with limited access to technology. Issues of digital inclusivity will be evaluated to reveal opportunities for platform improvement. The MyStroke platform offers a scalable solution stroke education which imposes no burden on the clinical team due to its reliance on a limited number of input fields which can be harvested from the electronic health record to individualized content for each patient.