The Behavior Change Suite™ (BCS) is a proprietary, state-of-the-art internet platform that supports the complex processes of clinically-linked behavior change and self-management support interventions.

Interventions powered by the BCS have a number of advantages:

  • Flexible support for very large numbers of participants, behavior change approaches and models
  • Support for everyone involved in a behavior change intervention
  • Management of patient and coach activities as they change over time
  • Engagement of patients through personalized experiences based on the individual’s characteristics and performance
  • Open architecture that easily integrates with other technologies and healthcare processes
  • Individual and population based real-time outcome monitoring and reporting
  • HIPAA compliant security that ensures data protection and user privacy
    		•

    Additionally, the Behavior Change Suite™ increases the efficiency and effectiveness of clinically-linked behavior change protocols by providing support to people as they adopt and sustain healthy habits.

    An innovative and powerful tool, the BCS can be customized to fit the particulars of your behavior change approach or intervention. It can be modified along a number of dimensions and, within each dimension, to a continuum of approaches. For example, while all interventions include patient education, one approach could feature complex, interactive, media rich lessons, while another could focus on providing incremental, experiential learning in response to particular actions or user outcomes.

    Different approaches expect a different level of clinician involvement. Whether only recruiting patients or a complete incorporation into the clinician’s normal care practices, the engine supports the integration with existing applications and the management tools relevant to the level of clinician involvement.

    Another dimension is the degree of personalization. The BCS is unique in the breadth and depth of personalization based on not only user characteristics, but upon a patient’s dynamic and changing success with the intervention over time.

    DPS Health is uniquely qualified to partner with your organization to create an online intervention.

    DPS Health designed the BCS to specifically model and support the complex and individualized factors that facilitate or inhibit the long-term adoption of healthy behaviors. By going beyond traditional education and tracking approaches, our system brings added value to a variety of healthcare provider, disease management and other clinically-linked behavior change interventions.

    With years of experience in technology, web application usability, behavior change theory and program development, DPS Health works closely with our client partners to customize their unique intervention protocols using our Behavior Change Suite™.

    Below are examples of how the BCS is powering a variety of different interventions:

    The Behavior Change Suite™ at Work

    The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh created their Virtual Lifestyle Management (VLM) application to enhance the scalability and reduce the cost of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) coaching protocols. As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, the National Institutes of Health funded DPP proved that dietary and activity coaching could help patients change their behavior and drastically reduce their progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes.

    VLM Coach Dashboard


    VLM Lesson Workbook Page


    As the screenshots illustrate, the Behavior Change Suite™ supports the VLM’s media rich lessons, interactive workbooks, nutrition, activity planning and activity tracking tools for patients. The application also provides advanced monitoring and coaching tools for clinical staff. Interventions integrate seamlessly via single sign-on and web services with existing patient portals. The screenshots illustrate the appearance of the interactive lessons and tools for coaches.

    The Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation and DPS Health have created an intervention specifically for use on Starlight’s teen obesity website, “Get Fit, Get Right.” Incorporating DPS Health’s Behavior Change Suite™, the site supports a user’s goal-setting, planning and tracking. The behavior change intervention integrates with a social networking component and streams video to promote use by the teenagers. DPS Health worked with the “Get Fit, Get Right” teen advisory council to configure the application flow and adjust the usability. This resulted in a darker, edgier look-and-feel and “hipper” language specifically for the teen audience. The goal-setting feature was designed to be highly-participatory and focus on the location of activities the teens had identified as important. The flexibility of the engine to support different behaviors and customized usability can be seen in the screenshots below.

    Different approaches expect a different level of clinician involvement. Whether only recruiting patients or a complete incorporation into the clinician’s normal care practices, the engine supports the integration with existing applications and the management tools relevant to the level of clinician involvement.

    Get Fit Get Right Task List


    Get Fit Get Right Planning Grid


    DPS Health’s own service, the Physical Activity Prescription™ combines a complete version of the Behavior Change Suite™ focused on helping patients of physician practices become more active with telephone coaching and physician office support. The application includes streaming video, and allows users to easily set activity goals, create weekly activity plans, track their progress and recognize and mitigate barriers. The screenshots illustrate the user-friendly daily tracking grid and weekly results graph.

    PARx Tracking Grid


    PARx Results Graph