Development of an Online Management Information System for a Community Health Worker Led Diabetes Intervention

Objective: To describe the collaborative design and development of an online database for use by community health workers (CHWs) to support and evaluate client recruitment and randomization, client/CHW interactions, data collection, case management, and community-level activities for the REACH Detroit Partnership, a community health worker intervention for African American and Latino residents of Detroit.

Methods: CHWs, a web-database developer, and evaluators jointly identified items to track in the web database. At each step of development, the content was reviewed by the CHW's and evaluators for user friendliness and consistency with the study objectives.

Results. User-friendly data entry screens and reports enhanced and supported data collection, CHW/client interactions, collection of survey and lab results and project evaluation. Training sessions were successfully conducted with the CHW's, who provided valuable feedback to the database developer on how to improve the system. The web database facilitated project management and development of project reports for funding agencies. A secured portion of the community database enabled the CHW's to enter data on participation in community activities, such as support groups, exercise classes, and healthy cooking demonstrations for people with diabetes and those at risk for diabetes. A community asset querying system was created for use by clients and community residents. In addition, the web database generated GIS maps, which were used to evaluate changes in community resources.

Conclusion: Through partnership between CHW's, database developers, and evaluators, a management information system can be developed to monitor and report progress.