PainTracker Self-Manager: a Web-based Platform to Promote and Track Chronic Pain Self-management

To develop and test a web-based patient empowerment platform, PainTracker Self-Manager
(PTSM), that can support integrated multimodal care in a variety of specialty and primary
care settings. The investigators will adapt PainTracker, a web-based outcome and treatment
tracking tool already deployed in multiple University of Washington clinics to create the
PTSM self-management tool that helps assess, engage, activate, and support patients' efforts
to self-manage their chronic pain in collaboration with their clinicians. PTSM design will
be based on 4-phase patient engagement strategy derived from Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy. Phase 1 focuses on achieving consensus on the clinical problem definition,
treatment goals and timeline. Phase 2 focuses on promoting values-based action and
acceptance of pain. Phase 3 focuses on providing skills in chronic pain self-management with
close monitoring of patient reported outcomes and actigraphy. Phase 4 focuses on providing
autonomy support to promote maintenance of self-management behaviors. Phase 5 involves
generating a patient registry with the above data for use in quality improvement research.
The investigators will engage patients, providers and investigators in designing PTSM,
reviewing prototypes, and conducting usability testing. In a 6-month clinical trial, the
investigators will compare 50 intervention patients from the UW Center for Pain Relief who
receive PTSM to 50 historical control patients who have received the basic PainTracker. The
primary outcome will be patient activation, with secondary outcomes of: chronic pain
self-efficacy, chronic pain acceptance, perceived efficacy in physician-patient
interactions, patient and provider satisfaction. Development of the PTSM platform will
support the dissemination of the multimodal interdisciplinary care for chronic pain that is
recommended in the National Pain Strategy, and may help chronic pain care meet the goals of
the Triple Aim: better patient experience, better patient outcomes, with lower costs.