Primary Care Providers Share Vision for Chronic Pain Digital Therapeutics

When it comes to chronic pain management, primary care providers are interested in digital therapeutics that strengthen the patient-provider alliance and team-based care, as well as support population-level tracking and consider social determinants of health. Researchers published their findings in JMIR Formative Research.

“Leveraging digital therapeutics in a feasible, appropriate, and acceptable way to aid primary care providers in chronic pain management may require multimodal features that address provider motivations at an individual care and clinic or system level,” wrote corresponding author Kris Pui Kwan Ma, PhD, of the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine in Seattle, and coauthors. 

To help guide the development of chronic pain digital therapeutics for primary care settings, researchers conducted qualitative interviews with 11 health care providers from three primary care clinics in Washington and one in Colorado. The providers, seven of whom were physicians, discussed their chronic pain management goals and priorities, experiences with patients, and perceptions of using digital therapeutics in the practice setting.

“We found that primary care providers were motivated but challenged to strengthen the patient-provider alliance, provide team-based care, track and monitor patients’ progress, and address social determinants of health in chronic pain management,” researchers reported.

Providers expressed a desire for resources that promote patient-centered communication, pain education and counseling, and goal setting, according to the study. Better accessibility to multidisciplinary care team consultations and nonpharmacological treatments were also wanted. At the population level, providers are looking for systems that systematically track and monitor patients’ chronic pain. 

Equitable reach was a common concern among providers.

“Chronic pain disproportionately affects people with multiple chronic conditions, who in turn are affected by higher levels of poverty and lower access to care,” researchers wrote. “Digital therapeutics for chronic pain will have more equitable reach if developed with an eye toward using platforms and solutions that require lower sophistication of device and internet access.”

Reference:
Ma KPK, Stephens KA, Geyer RE, et al. Developing digital therapeutics for chronic pain in primary care: a qualitative human-centered design study of providers' motivations and challenges. JMIR Form Res. 2023;7:e41788. doi:10.2196/41788