# Effects of a Novel, Scalable, and Sustainable Patient Portal Intervention on Diabetes-Related Outcomes: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial

> **NIH NIH R01** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · $766,842

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
There is an urgent need for effective diabetes self-management interventions that are convenient, scalable,
sustainable, and able to meet the needs of diverse patients and those with limited health literacy that may be
disproportionately affected by the disease. Based on our preliminary studies, My Diabetes Care (MDC) may fill
this critical gap by bringing together some of the best aspects of diabetes mHealth apps and incorporating
them into a patient portal intervention that was developed to be interoperable with a variety of electronic health
records (EHRs) and that offers direct integration into routine care without creating additional work for
healthcare teams or the need for additional staff. MDC is a multi-faceted patient portal intervention designed to
help patients better understand their diabetes health data as well as promote and support self-management.
Developed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), MDC uses infographics to facilitate users'
understanding of their diabetes health data, incorporates motivational strategies and access to an online
patient support community, and provides literacy level-appropriate and tailored diabetes self-care information.
To ensure interoperability and optimize scalability, we built MDC using Substitutable Medical Applications,
Reusable Technologies on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (SMART on FHIR) that allows MDC to be
installed into a wide variety of EHR platforms across the U.S. Our preliminary studies suggest MDC is
acceptable, feasible, improves understanding of diabetes health measures, and increases patient activation.
The objective of the proposed research is to: (1) expand MDC's display of user's diabetes health data beyond
hemoglobin A1C, blood pressure, cholesterol, and flu vaccination status to include microalbumin and BMI and
enhance access by creating a Spanish-language version; (2) evaluate the effects of the expanded & enhanced
version of MDC on diabetes-related outcomes while demonstrating its scalability by integrating it into another
health system and conducting a pragmatic randomized controlled trial in an ethnically and racially diverse
patient population, and (3) examine how the effects of MDC arise by studying causal mediators. The proposed
work is important because racial/ethnic minorities and those with limited health literacy are more likely to
experience barriers to diabetes self-care and technology use. By designing, testing, and evaluating, MDC in
diverse groups of patients including those with limited health literacy and developing a Spanish language
version, we will advance the understanding of how to create patient-facing health technologies to achieve
broad uptake and address health inequities. By leveraging SMART on FHIR, our project will also demonstrate
the current state of the art by implementing and testing MDC without needing to rebuild it and will serve as a
model for future patient portal-based interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10344030
- **Project number:** 1R01DK131129-01
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** William Martinez
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $766,842
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-20 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10344030

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10344030, Effects of a Novel, Scalable, and Sustainable Patient Portal Intervention on Diabetes-Related Outcomes: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial (1R01DK131129-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-10 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10344030. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*