The few touch digital diabetes diary : user-involved design of mobile self-help tools for peoplewith diabetes

Paper number 2, 4, 5 and 7 are not available in Munin, due to publishers' restrictions: 2. Årsand E, and Demiris G.: "User-Centered Methods for Designing Patient-Centric Self-Help Tools", Informatics for Health and Social Care, 2008 Vol. 33, No. 3, Pages 158-169 (Informa Healthcare). Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17538150802457562 4. Årsand E, Olsen OA, Varmedal R, Mortensen W, and Hartvigsen G.: "A System for Monitoring Physical Activity Data Among People with Type 2 Diabetes", pages 173-178 in S.K. Andersen, et.al. (eds.) "eHealth Beyond the Horizon - Get IT There", Proceedings of MIE2008, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Volume 136, May 2008, ISBN: 978-1-58603-864-9 5. Årsand E, Tufano JT, Ralston J, and Hjortdahl P.: "Designing Mobile Dietary Management Support Technologies for People with Diabetes", Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 2008 Volume 14, Number 7, Pp. 329-332 (Royal Society of Medicine Press). Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1258/jtt.2008.007001 7. Årsand E, Walseth OA, Andersson N, Fernando R, Granberg O, Bellika JG, and Hartvigsen G.: "Using Blood Glucose Data as an Indicator for Epidemic Disease Outbreaks", pages 199-204 in R. Engelbrecht et.al. (eds.): "Connecting Medical Informatics and Bio-Informatics", Proceedings of MIE2005, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Volume 116, August 2005, ISBN: 978-1-58603-549-5. Check availabilityParadoxically, the technological revolution that has created a vast health problem due to a drastic change in lifestyle also holds great potential for individuals to take better care of their own health. The first consequence is not addressed in this dissertation, but the second represents the focus of the work presented, namely utilizing ICT to support self-management of individual health challenges. As long as only 35% of the patients in Norway achieve the International Diabetes Federation‟s goal for blood glucose (HbA1c), actions and activities to improve blood glucose control and related factors are needed. The presented work focuses on the development and integration of alternative sensor systems for blood glucose and physical activity, and a fast and effortless method for recording food habits. Various user-interface concepts running on a mobile terminal constitute a digital diabetes diary, and the total concept is referred to as the “Few Touch application”. The overall aim of this PhD project is to generate knowledge about how a mobile tool can be designed for supporting lifestyle changes among people with diabetes. Applying technologies and methods from the informatics field has contributed to improved insight into this issue. Conversely, addressing the concrete use cases for people with diabetes has resulted in the achievement of ICT designs that have been appreciated by the cohorts involved. Cooperation with three different groups of patients with diabetes over several years and various methods and theories founded in computer science, medical informatics, and telemedicine have been combined in design and research on patient-oriented aids. The blood glucose Bluetooth adapter, the step counter, and the nutrition habit registration system that have been developed were all novel and to my knowledge unique designs at the time they were first tested, and this still applies to the latter two. Whether it can be claimed that the total concept presented, the Few Touch application, will increase quality of life, is up to future research and large-scale tests of the system to answer. However, results from the Type 2 diabetes half-year study showed that several of the participants did adjust their medication, food habits and/or physical activity due to use of the application

Towards personalized services in the healthcare domain

Healthcare services are designed for enabling the provision of medical care to the patient. The traditional healthcare services are based on the doctor-centric paradigm. Essentially, they enable healthcare providers to assess patients’ health status based on information derived from medical examination and information stored in patient’s electronic Medical Health Records (eMHRs) [1]. Hence, it is crucial for patient’s health data to be digitalized and organized in such a way allowing their exploitation by the healthcare provider at a later point of time [2]. The doctor-centric healthcare services enhance healthcare providers’ diagnosing skills and enable them to give patients accurate treatment directions aiming to their earlier and safer de-hospitalization

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Point of Care Healthcare Quality Control for Patients Using Mobile Devices

The advances made in the domain of mobile telecommunications over the last decade offer great potential for developments in many areas. One such area that can benefit from mobile communications is telemedicine, which is the provision of medical assistance, in one form or another, to patients who are geographically separated from the healthcare provider. When a person is ill, individual attention from medical professionals is of the utmost importance until they have returned to full health. However, people who suffer with long term and chronic illnesses may need life long care and often must manage their condition at home. Many chronically ill patients manage their condition themselves and perform ‘self-testing’ with Point of Care Test (POCT) equipment as part of this condition management. When a specimen sample is analysed at home with a POCT device, a result is available to the patient almost immediately, but the result cannot be proven to be plausible for the patient unless it is validated by the hospital systems. In addition to this the hospital is unaware of the patients condition and progress between hospital visits. This research addresses some of the issues and problems that fact patients who use POCT equipment to ‘self-manage’ their condition at home. Using mobile phone technologies and the Java platform, three alternative methods for providing patients with a service of POCT result validation and storage was designed. The implementation and test of these systems, proves that a mobile phone solution to the issues associated with patient self-testing is possible and can greatly contribute to the quality of patient care

FUTURE-ORIENTED AND PATIENT-CENTRIC? A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL THERAPEUTICS AND THEIR INTEROPERABILITY

This paper focuses on the integration of digital therapeutics (DTx) into future-oriented and patient-centric care pathways. Based on a workshop series and problem-centered interviews in Germany, the current state-of-the-art of regulatory and technical integration of DTx was mapped as a landscape of DTx interoperability. The results focus on key interfaces of DTx, namely with Electronic Health Records (EHRs), devices, and other digital health innovations such as telemedicine, and highlight current challenges and potentials for future development. On a broader level, the results point to unresolved issues of care coordination, the optional role of the EHRs as regulated platforms for care, and the importance of integrating DTx data into public data spaces for research

Updates of Wearing Devices (WDs) In Healthcare, And Disease Monitoring

 With the rising pervasiveness of growing populace, aging and chronic illnesses consistently rising medical services costs, the health care system is going through a crucial change from the conventional hospital focused system to an individual-focused system. Since the twentieth century, wearable sensors are becoming widespread in medical care and biomedical monitoring systems, engaging consistent estimation of biomarkers for checking of the diseased condition and wellbeing, clinical diagnostics and assessment in biological fluids like saliva, blood, and sweat. Recently, the improvements have been centered around electrochemical and optical biosensors, alongside advances with the non-invasive monitoring of biomarkers, bacteria and hormones, etc. Wearable devices have created with a mix of multiplexed biosensing, microfluidic testing and transport frameworks incorporated with flexible materials and body connections for additional created wear ability and effortlessness. These wearables hold guarantee and are fit for a higher understanding of the relationships between analyte focuses inside the blood or non-invasive biofluids and feedback to the patient, which is fundamentally significant in ideal finding, therapy, and control of diseases. In any case, cohort validation studies and execution assessment of wearable biosensors are expected to support their clinical acceptance. In the current review, we discussed the significance, highlights, types of wearables, difficulties and utilizations of wearable devices for biological fluids for the prevention of diseased conditions and real time monitoring of human wellbeing. In this, we sum up the different wearable devices that are developed for health care monitoring and their future potential has been discussed in detail

Tablet-based Self-management Intervention for Diabetes Mellitus Type II Patients: Usability and Efficacy of The ASSISTwell Tool

Background: The usefulness of technology and the powerful capabilities of technological applications have led to a significantly increased interest in finding novel approaches to support older adults’ self-management. Self-management technological applications have been used in various contexts, and usability is key in sustainability and adoption of such technologies. Objective: The purpose of this research is to assess the usability of the ASSISTwell application in an older adult population with Diabetes Type II (DMII) and explore whether the application can effectively enhance DMII patients’ self-management. Design: Qualitative interviews, Observation, and Quasi-experimental design. Methods: Semi-structured interviews, observation, documentation, and quantitative standardized measures were used in this study. A purposive sample of 24 elderly patients with DMII was recruited for the study. Descriptive and inferential analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. Simple content analysis was used to organize the emerging usability themes. Results: User feedback from the four-week user intervention demonstrated good usability of the ASSISTwell application. After using the ASSISTwell for 30 days, there was significant improvement in the perceived diabetes self-management skills of the intervention group (difference in mean PDSMS (F (1, 20) =5.11, p=0.035). Furthermore, those who used ASSISTwell (mean= 30.22, SD= 6.34) had higher PDSMS scores than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (mean= 23.95, SD= 7.12). There was no significant difference in mean blood glucose levels (F (1, 20) =0.37, p=0.54) between the two groups. Those who used ASSISTwell (M=178, SD=40) had lower blood glucose levels than those who received usual care without ASSISTwell (M=185, SD=49), but the difference is not statistically significant. Conclusions: The novel ASSISTwell application presented in this paper helped participants improve their diabetes self-management skills. A well-designed application with new features has the ability to provide more promising results regarding improving perceived diabetes self-management skills. Also, examining usability is an essential step in application development to ensure that the application\u27s features match users\u27 expectations and needs and minimize the likelihood of user errors and difficulties using the system

Designing for Lived Health: Engaging the Sociotechnical Complexity of Care Work

As healthcare is increasingly shaped by everyday interaction with data and technologies, there is a widespread interest in creating information systems that help people actively participate in managing their own health and wellness. To date, personal health technologies are largely designed as large-scale “patient-centered” systems, grounded in a biomedical model of care and clinical processes and/or commercial “self-care” technologies, that seek to facilitate individual behavior change through activities like fitness tracking. Through investigating the lived experience of chronic illness—multiple, messy, and often the site of uncomfortable dependencies—my thesis empirically and theoretically engages the limitations of such popular design narratives to address sociotechnical complexities in personal health management. My findings, drawn from people’s care practices across three distinct field sites, argue for a need to contend with lived health: the ways in which everyday health and wellness activities are connected to wider ecologies of care that include the emotional labor of family and friends, entanglements of data, machineries and bodies, localized networks of resources and expertise, and contested forms of information work. My thesis contributes to the literature of Information and Computer Science in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work by offering an alternative analytical lens for designing health systems that support a wider range of people’s social and emotional needs.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146030/1/eskaziu_1.pd