1-minute summary: “Life is hard enough, your ADHD pathway doesn’t have to be”, says Nannette Morris, board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Focus of Tampa Bay. Alongside April Green, board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and founder at Focus of Tampa Bay, the duo explains how objective ADHD testing helped them develop a holistic diagnostic experience, with personalized patient care options for ADHD assessments.
Subjective data gained from clinical interviews and rating scales play an important role in the assessment of ADHD. However, there are in-built risks from using subjective measures alone, such as patient or parent biases or differences in rating scale reports between school and home.
The clinicians at Focus of Tampa Bay have developed an ADHD care pathway that uses objective ADHD testing to develop a holistic diagnostic experience, with personalized patient care options for ADHD assessments. Nannette Morris and April Green, who are both board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners at Focus of Tampa Bay, share their experiences of Qbtesting in their clinic in this case study.
The challenge
Using only subjective measures in ADHD testing can make diagnosis more difficult
Clinicians at Focus of Tampa Bay undertake an extensive ADHD evaluation that considers a patient's lived experience, habits, nutrition, and general health. When testing for ADHD, they use:
- Standardized behavior rating scales
- Requests for blood work and other diagnostic tests as needed
- Diet and nutrition analysis and recommendations
- Consultation with an ADHD coach and other resources
However, subjective measures alone make it difficult to quantify the severity of ADHD symptoms and diagnose ADHD with confidence.
The complex nature of ADHD also means that patients can struggle to understand symptoms and how they affect them. This can cause challenges throughout the ADHD care journey – from describing symptoms during testing to understanding the impacts of ADHD on daily life and routine after a diagnosis and seeing the changes from medication and treatment.
“Retests help us make patients, and in the case of children, their parents understand what an optimal dose means. It helps us show how medication is helping [to] improve the different areas of a patient’s ADHD.
It helps us, as clinicians, maintain those optimal dosage levels in situations where patients or parents request an increased dose. We have evidence to support our clinical decisions.”
April Green
Founder & mental health nurse practitioner, Focus of Tampa Bay
The solution
Adding Qbtech’s objective solutions to the clinic’s ADHD pathway to diagnose and titrate
The clinic introduced Qbtesting alongside existing subjective and clinical measures to aid in diagnostic decision-making and monitor treatment titration.
Visualizing ADHD by adding objective data and clarity to the assessment process
Qbtesting provides clinicians with quantifiable data on a patient’s ADHD symptoms, benchmarked against the results of people of the same age and sex at birth who don’t have ADHD.
Findings from the assessment are presented in a summary format that includes graphs and visual representations of symptoms. These are used by the clinicians at Focus of Tampa Bay to aid discussions with patients, helping them to visually see the impact of ADHD symptoms on their test results.
Using a digital ADHD test in treatment management and titration
Studies have highlighted how Qbtech’s ADHD tests can be used to objectively measure symptom change following treatment. By comparing results following a medication intervention with baseline test data, clinicians and patients can see how treatment is affecting symptoms.
As part of their membership, Focus of Tampa Bay offers its patients one repeat test per year. The solution of Qbtesting has several applications for patients of the clinics:
- If a child continues to struggle with certain symptoms or school grades don't reflect improvement, even after starting treatment, then a retest is administered to look for their optimal dosage. Per routine procedure, follow-up rating scales and parent-teacher feedback are also taken into account
- When patients undergo pharmacogenetic testing (to see which medication may be better suited for a patient), the clinical team uses Qbtesting to assist in identifying an optimal dose for medication
- Retesting is also used to avoid prescribing a higher dosage when a patient is already at an optimal level
The result
Stronger patient-clinician relationships, improved patient understanding of ADHD, and personalized models of care
Since introducing Qbtesting to the clinic, there have been improvements to the pathway and models of ADHD care that have benefitted both patients and clinicians.
How digital ADHD tests are aiding communication around ADHD for patients and clinicians
The practice utilizes objective data from test reports to effectively communicate with ADHD patients and create a better patient-clinician rapport. Reports act as a reference point when explaining diagnostic decisions, considering all the clinical information previously gathered.
They also aid in visually highlighting the different areas of their patients’ ADHD – inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.
Nannette Morris explains that “patients, and in the case of children, their families, love having objective data they can look at. The reports are important for them to understand the diagnosis better.”
The ability to review results with patients and their families improves patient understanding of ADHD symptoms and forms a strong foundation for long-term management of ADHD.
Strong clinician-patient conversations are key to helping patients understand ADHD and manage their symptoms. Download our psychoeducation toolkit to explore the conversations that can happen between patients and clinicians during and after an ADHD diagnosis.
Objective data helps clinicians to more confidently diagnose or rule out ADHD
Studies have indicated that adding Qbtesting to ADHD testing processes has increased clinicians' confidence in their diagnostic decisions and also made it easier to rule out ADHD.
April Green highlights how objective data can add clarity in situations where subjective data can be inconclusive for diagnosing ADHD. As an example, teachers often miss symptoms of inattention in classrooms, particularly if a child is considered shy or quiet. Qbtesting can help to remove this uncertainty, leading April to say “I don’t ever want to diagnose ADHD without [it]”.
Using digital ADHD tests in the pathway has helped the clinic to develop personalized treatment plans for patients
Each patient has a different experience of ADHD, and we know the condition affects people differently depending on their age, sex, and personal circumstances.
Qbtesting has helped clinicians at Focus of Tampa Bay to tailor ADHD care and treatment to the individual patient.
“On seeing the [Qbtesting] reports, we look for areas that may correlate to the subjective data we have on hand and put all the pieces together before formally diagnosing our patients with ADHD and creating their personalized treatment plan,” says April Green.
“I took an objective ADHD test [QbTest] while seeing April and Nannette at Focus of Tampa Bay. They walked us through the diagnosis process and explained what my results meant. And this helped me understand exactly how my brain works.
Following that experience, it has been so much easier to connect the dots between my behaviors and my ADHD.”
Gannon Johnson
Patient at Focus of Tampa Bay
By combining subjective and objective data, clinicians have been able to develop a holistic approach to ADHD diagnosis and care. They make recommendations that may include supplementation, medication, ADHD coaching, parent behavioral management coaching, and academic executive function coaching.
“Adding objective data to our ADHD diagnosis process helps us find the missing pieces, enhancing patient care. We can then have a streamlined process and treat patients based on their needs.”
About Focus of Tampa Bay
Focus of Tampa Bay is a membership-based healthcare practice offering comprehensive ADHD evaluations and treatment for children and adults. Services are provided in-office and virtually via telehealth.
The clinic has been using Qbtesting as part of its ADHD assessment process since 2019 to create a streamlined solution for ADHD management and improve patient experience.
Seamlessly integrate our digital ADHD tool into your current pathway
Our medical technology standardizes ADHD pathways, improves clinical understanding of patient symptoms, and aids diagnostic decision-making when used alongside other clinical measures. To find out more, contact our expert team.