Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationOne out of every six children in sub-Saharan Africa dies from treatable diseases before reaching age 5. Millions of these deaths could be averted if health care providers followed evidence-based protocols, such as the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI), to provide care. IMCI assists providers to diagnose and treat problems for children under 5, and specifies key information for the provider to teach to the child's caretaker. While IMCI has been adopted as official policy throughout Tanzania, the protocol has been neither universally used nor consistently followed. An innovative IMCI-based protocol that runs on a mobile phone, called eIMCI, was designed for this study using user-centered design (UCD) principles to assist provider navigation of the protocol and improve provider-caretaker communication of key information points, including the problem and treatment of the child, and when to return to the clinic. The electronic protocol, eIMCI, was compared to an equivalent paper-based protocol, pIMCI. This study was based on the mHealth Communications Theoretical Framework. The aims of the study were to (1) utilize UCD design principles to develop eIMCI and evaluate its usability, and (2) evaluate the effect of protocol delivery platform on (a) provider communication and (b) caretaker recall of key information points. A randomized cluster trial was conducted in which health care clinics in Tanzania were randomized to implement each platform. Results suggested that electronic protocol use led to improved provider-caretaker communication. Providers who used eIMCI were more likely to give counseling that covered the key information points specified, and caretakers in the eIMCI arm recalled more of these key information points overall. The implications of this work suggested that the eIMCI mobile protocol may lead to improved provider-caretaker communication, which may result in a greater ability for caretakers to carry out treatment plans in the home. When utilizing mobile devices to deliver such interventions, the structure, clarity, and direction enabled by the electronic platform are suggested to promote adoption of the complete sphere of high-quality clinical care. As such adoption is continued, understanding of key health information may become firmly rooted in caretaker health literacy levels

Development of a cellphone based monitoring and management-support system for anti-retroviral therapy

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-135).HIV/Aids has had a major impact on global society since its discovery in 1981.Over the last two decades, HIV treatment research has resulted in the developmentof antiretroviral (ARV) drug therapy and treatment. However, there are many challenges to ARV Therapy (ART) and these challenges are further extended in the resource limited developing world, where the majority of infections occur. Therefore, ART is regarded as not only a medical challenge, but a logistical, monitoring and management challenge that requires the development and implementation of supporting systems. The Cell-Life system is a prototype engineering concept that uses locally available ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), such as GSM (Global System for Mobile) and Internet connectivity to provide monitoring and management support for ART. This dissertation is an investigation and development of the system in order to create an effective solution for public health sector clinics.The investigation process is based upon a user-centred HCI (Human Computer Interface) model and it is carried out on five components of the system: cellphonemenu applications, SMS data submission and database integration, web applications, servers and user guide and training. This research has resulted in a progressive advancement and transformation of the prototype concept through the development, testing and pilot site implementation of an updated suite of components with valuable findings from usability testing. This study confirms that locally available ICTs can be developed to empower the resource limited clinic level public health sector to overcome some of the challenges of ART. This essentially contributes to bridging the “digital divide” and providing support in the developing context

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

Game-Based Learning, Gamification in Education and Serious Games

The aim of this book is to present and discuss new advances in serious games to show how they could enhance the effectiveness and outreach of education, advertising, social awareness, health, policies, etc. We present their use in structured learning activities, not only with a focus on game-based learning, but also on the use of game elements and game design techniques to gamify the learning process. The published contributions really demonstrate the wide scope of application of game-based approaches in terms of purpose, target groups, technologies and domains and one aspect they have in common is that they provide evidence of how effective serious games, game-based learning and gamification can be

Promoting Andean children's learning of science through cultural and digital tools

Conference Theme: To see the world and a grain of sand: Learning across levels of space, time, and scaleIn Peru, there is a large achievement gap in rural schools. In order to overcome this problem, the study aims to design environments that enhance science learning through the integration of ICT with cultural artifacts, respecting the Andean culture and empower rural children to pursue lifelong learning. This investigation employs the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework, and the Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology using an iterative process of design, implementation and evaluation of the innovative practice.published_or_final_versio