Patient Empowerment Through Predictive Personalised Decision Support

PEPPER (Patient Empowerment through Predictive PERsonalised decision support) is an EU-funded research project which aimed to improve self-management of T1D through the development of a novel decision support system (DSS).  PEPPER comprises an artificial intelligence (AI) insulin bolus recommender, coupled with a safety system. A personalised case-based reasoning (CBR) algorithm makes insulin dosing recommendations and model-based reasoning  predicts adverse events and detects faults in the system.

Marion Waite led a qualitative study nested within a small-scale but multi-centre clinical feasibility study of PEPPER.  The clinical feasibility study took place during Phase 2 of the overall PEPPER study and lasted 8 weeks to evaluate the whole PEPPER system in both the UK and Spanish study centres. The qualitative study ran alongside the implementation of Phase 2 and took a contextual inquiry  approach to determine how PEPPER was engaged with and trusted in the context of participants’ lives.