Mobile Health Technologies

Mobile Health Technologies, also known as mHealth technologies, have emerged, amongst healthcare providers, as the ultimate Technologies-of-Choice for the 21st century in delivering not only transformative change in healthcare delivery, but also critical health information to different communities of practice in integrated healthcare information systems. mHealth technologies nurture seamless platforms and pragmatic tools for managing pertinent health information across the continuum of different healthcare providers. mHealth technologies commonly utilize mobile medical devices, monitoring and wireless devices, and/or telemedicine in healthcare delivery and health research. Today, mHealth technologies provide opportunities to record and monitor conditions of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) and diabetes mellitus. The intent of this book is to enlighten readers about the theories and applications of mHealth technologies in the healthcare domain

Data, Data Everywhere, and Still Too Hard to Link: Insights from User Interactions with Diabetes Apps

For those with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes, smartphone apps offer the promise of an affordable, convenient, and personalized disease management tool. How- ever, despite significant academic research and commercial development in this area, diabetes apps still show low adoption rates and underwhelming clinical outcomes. Through user-interaction sessions with 16 people with Type 1 diabetes, we provide evidence that commonly used interfaces for diabetes self-management apps, while providing certain benefits, can fail to explicitly address the cognitive and emotional requirements of users. From analysis of these sessions with eight such user interface designs, we report on user requirements, as well as interface benefits, limitations, and then discuss the implications of these findings. Finally, with the goal of improving these apps, we identify 3 questions for designers, and review for each in turn: current shortcomings, relevant approaches, exposed challenges, and potential solutions

Designing for Self-Management of Multiple Chronic Conditions by the Aging-at-home

Many elderly individuals are aging at home (AAH) as the planet is graying. In the U.S., the number will rise to more than 64 million people by 2040. The AAH are more susceptible to health-related issues due to the normal process of aging coupled with the incidence of multiple chronic conditions (MCC). Self-management of MCC can be cognitively and operationally challenging for the AAH. We are designing digital resources for AAH with MCC following the action design research methodology. In this paper, we describe outcomes from early rounds, including problem formulation with semi-structured interviews of AAH with MCC, exploring theoretical precursors and technology frames, and evaluating design genres to establish a design vision. The outcomes are described as a theory-ingrained, layered digital artifact, MyHealthNotes; along with the results of an initial applicability check and formative usability test. The paper concludes with a discussion of contributions so far and next steps

Adaptive dashboard for IoT environments: application for senior residences

Les tableaux de bord sont de puissants outils électroniques qui peuvent fournir des informations exploitables et utiles pour une intervention rapide et une prise de décision éclairée. Ils peuvent être particulièrement bénéfiques pour favoriser un vieillissement en bonne santé en fournissant aux professionnels de la santé un aperçu en un coup d'œil des conditions du patient (par exemple, les personnes âgées). Alors que la population des personnes âgées augmente dans plusieurs pays, dont le Canada, un grand nombre d'entre eux seront forcés de déménager dans des résidences pour personnes âgées pour des raisons telles que la fragilité, la démence ou le sentiment de solitude. Cette population importante de personnes âgées augmentera la charge de travail des infirmières et des professionnels de la santé travaillant dans ces lieux, en raison du fait que les personnes âgées ont besoin de visites fréquentes et d'une surveillance en raison de leur état de santé. Ce problème a le potentiel de mettre plus de pression sur le système de santé déjà tendu dans les prochaines années. La pénurie d'infirmières et de main-d'œuvre rend la situation plus grave, en particulier dans les pays développés. Il faudrait donc prendre des initiatives pour soutenir les soignants de ces résidences. Le tableau de bord peut jouer un rôle clé pour aider les professionnels de la santé dans leurs tâches car il peut fournir des informations en un coup d'œil et en temps réel sur la situation actuelle. De nos jours, avec les progrès technologiques dans les dispositifs de détection et l'infrastructure IoT ainsi qu'un accès Internet élargi, la surveillance des patients à distance est devenue une option réalisable. Par ailleurs, en utilisant un tableau de bord, les professionnels de la santé peuvent visualiser les informations collectées à distance pour surveiller les personnes âgées vivant dans des résidences, ce qui fera gagner un temps considérable aux professionnels de la santé et les aidera à servir plus de patients. Cependant, il est important de considérer que les résidences pour personnes âgées accueillent généralement un grand nombre de résidents et les professionnels de la santé qui les desservent. Chaque professionnel de la santé est motivé par certains objectifs et exécute des tâches précises selon des priorités différentes. Cette différence change la façon dont chaque fournisseur de soins de santé utilisera le tableau de bord, car ils ont besoin d'informations qui les aident dans leurs tâches principales. Les informations qu'un groupe de professionnels de la santé trouve bénéfiques peuvent ne pas être utiles pour un autre groupe. Ainsi, la méthode de visualisation utilisée pour un individu peut ne pas être significative pour un autre. Par conséquence, les informations doivent être présentées de manière personnalisée et adaptée à un utilisateur ciblé. Il est important de souligner que la visualisation appropriée des informations dans les tableaux de bord est un facteur clé pour offrir une valeur réelle aux utilisateurs. Cette diversité de besoins, de préférences et de priorités doit être prise en compte tout au long de l'élaboration du tableau de bord. En raison de la diversité des rôles et des intérêts existant dans les résidences pour personnes âgées, et compte tenu du coût élevé du développement du tableau de bord, il est très difficile de développer des tableaux de bord séparés pour chaque partie. Cependant, les solutions existantes dans la littérature sont développées à l'aide de méthodes statiques et se concentrent sur la satisfaction des besoins d'un groupe particulier. Ces approches limitent les capacités des tableaux de bord existants à s'adapter aux besoins des différentes personnes. Dans cette étude, nous présentons AMI-Dash comme une tentative de réalisation d'une solution de tableau de bord qui permet une conception dynamique et une visualisation appropriée des informations pour plusieurs groupes. Notre solution vise à fournir les bonnes informations aux bonnes personnes en minimisant le temps nécessaire pour fournir un tableau de bord aux professionnels la santé, afin de les aider dans l'exercice de leurs fonctions en accédant à des informations exploitables. Nous avons également évalué notre solution sous deux aspects : l'évaluation de l'interaction homme-machine et l'évaluation technique. Le résultat de notre évaluation montre que la solution proposée peut satisfaire à la fois les exigences de l'utilisateur final et les exigences techniques tout en maintenant un haut niveau de satisfaction.Abstract: Dashboards are powerful electronic tools that can provide actionable insights for timely intervention and wise decision-making. They can be particularly beneficial to support healthy aging by providing healthcare professionals with at-a-glance overview of health conditions of patients (e.g., older adults). As the population of older adults is increasing in several countries including Canada, a large number of them will be forced to move to Senior Residences due to reasons like frailty, dementia or loneliness. This swelled senior population will increase the workload of nurses and health professionals working in these places, due to the fact that older adults need frequent visits and monitoring because of their health condition. This issue has the potential to put more pressure on the already stretched healthcare system in the next years. The situation is aggravated when it is coincided with the shortage of nurses and workforce especially in developed countries. Therefore, initiative should be taken to support healthcare professionals in these residences. Dashboard can play a key role to support healthcare professionals in their tasks as it can provide real-time information about the current situation in more helpful visualization form. Nowadays, with technological advancements in sensing devices and IoT infrastructure along with broadened internet access, remote patient monitoring has become a feasible option. By utilizing a dashboard, healthcare professionals can visualize information collected remotely to monitor patients/ older adults living in senior residences, which will save a considerable time of healthcare professionals and support them to serve more patients. However, it is important to consider that senior residences usually host a large number of older adults and healthcare professionals that serve them. Each healthcare professional is driven with certain goals, and they have different tasks and priorities. This difference, change how each healthcare professional will utilize the dashboard, as they need information that helps them in their main tasks. The information that a group of healthcare professionals find beneficial might not be useful for another group, and the visualization method used for an individual might not be meaningful for another. Therefore, information should be presented in a personalized way to the targeted user. It is important to emphasize that appropriate visualization of interesting information, in dashboards is a key factor to deliver real value to dashboard users. Due to the variety of roles and interests that exists in senior residences, and considering high development cost of a dashboard, developing separate dashboards for each party is not only difficult but also time consuming. Still, existing solutions in the literature are developed using static methods and they focused on satisfying the needs of a particular group in their domain. These approaches limited the capabilities of existing dashboards to adapt to the needs of different people. We argue that dashboard has to be tailored in order to address the diversity in needs, preferences and priorities of healthcare professionals. In this study we introduce AMI-Dash as an attempt to achieve a dashboard solution that allows dynamic design and information visualization. Our solution focused on providing the right information to the right people while minimizing the time required to deliver a dashboard to health professionals, so that supporting them in performing their duties by accessing timely and actionable information. We also evaluated our proposed solution from two aspects: Human-Computer Interaction Evaluation and Technical Evaluation. The result of our evaluation shows that proposed solution can satisfy both end-user and technical requirements while maintaining a high-level of satisfaction among users

Seniors with Diabetes-Investigation of the Impact of Semantic Auditory Distractions on the Usability of a Blood Glucose Tracking Mobile Application

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. With the population rapidly aging, it is expected that 1 out of 3 Americans will have diabetes by 2050. Mobile devices and mobile applications have the potential to contribute to diabetes self-care by allowing users to manage their diabetes by keeping track of their blood glucose levels. Usability is important for systems that help people self-manage conditions such as diabetes. Age and diabetes-related cognitive decline might intensify the impact of usability issues for the users who need these mobile applications the most. As highlighted by usability researchers, the context of use (i.e. environment, user, task, and technology) has a significant impact on usability. The environment (lighting, temperature, audio and visual distractions, etc.) is of special interest to the mobile usability arena since in the case of mobile devices, is always changing. This dissertation aims to support the claim that context and more specifically environmental distraction such as semantic auditory distractions impact the usability of mobile applications. In doing so, it attempts to answer the following research questions: 1) Does semantic auditory distractions reduce the effectiveness of a blood glucose tracking mobile application? 2) Does semantic auditory distractions reduce the efficiency of a blood glucose tracking mobile application? 3) Does semantic auditory distractions reduce the user satisfaction of a blood glucose tracking mobile application? To answer the study research questions, a true experimental design was performed involving 30 adults with type 2 diabetes. Participants were paired based on their age and experience with smartphones and randomly assigned to the control (no semantic auditory distractions) or experimental (semantic auditory distractions) group. Research questions were tested using the general linear model. The results of this study confirmed that semantic auditory distractions have a significant effect on efficiency and effectiveness, and hence they need to be taken into account when evaluating mobile usability. This study also showed that semantic auditory distractions have no significant effect on user satisfaction. This dissertation enhances the current knowledge about the impact of semantic auditory distractions on the usability of mobile applications within the diabetic senior population

DIL - A CONVERSATIONAL AGENT FOR HEART FAILURE PATIENTS

There is an exceptionally high rate of readmissions and rehospitalizations for patients suffering from chronic diseases especially Heart Failure. Best efforts to address this alarming problem from the Care giver community have fallen short due to a number of factors most notably resource constraints like shortage of trained clinical staff, and money. Using a Design Science Research framework, this work designed and evaluated DIL , a Conversational Agent that complements the work of clinicians in achieving the desired behavioral and clinical outcomes. The aim is to provide the hospital with an information system that could bridge the current gap in care that occurs when the patient transitions from the hospital environment to the home environment. The expected contribution is to produce a novel artifact and demonstrate the efficacy and utility of the tool to assist patients with heart failure in improving their self-care. The study conclusions were extremely positive. DIL scored high on User engagement and satisfaction. Every patient felt significantly more positive after their interaction with DIL during the trial period, and had a positive outlook on their quality of life going forward. The patients in the trial found DIL to be helpful in keeping them motivated to follow a healthy lifestyle by controlling their diet, and adhering to clinical guidelines of regular exercise, and taking medications on a timely manner. Given the extremely positive experience of the patients, there is definitely room for such an IT artifact in supporting patients as they make the transition from hospital to the home setting

A multimodal conversational coach for active ageing based on sentient computing and m-health

As Life Expectancy Increases, It Has Become More Necessary To Find Ways To Support Healthy Ageing. A Number Of Active Ageing Initiatives Are Being Developed Nowadays To Foster Healthy Habits In The Population. This Paper Presents Our Contribution To These Initiatives In The Form Of A Multimodal Conversational Coach That Acts As A Coach For Physical Activities. The Agent Can Be Developed As An Android App Running On Smartphones And Coupled With Cheap Widely Available Sport Sensors In Order To Provide Meaningful Coaching. It Can Be Employed To Prepare Exercise Sessions, Provide Feedback During The Sessions, And Discuss The Results After The Exercise. It Incorporates An Affective Component That Informs Dynamic User Models To Produce Adaptive Interaction Strategies.Spanish project, Grant/Award Number:TEC2017-88048-C2-2-R and TRA2016-78886-C3-1-

Usability analysis of contending electronic health record systems

In this paper, we report measured usability of two leading EHR systems during procurement. A total of 18 users participated in paired-usability testing of three scenarios: ordering and managing medications by an outpatient physician, medicine administration by an inpatient nurse and scheduling of appointments by nursing staff. Data for audio, screen capture, satisfaction rating, task success and errors made was collected during testing. We found a clear difference between the systems for percentage of successfully completed tasks, two different satisfaction measures and perceived learnability when looking at the results over all scenarios. We conclude that usability should be evaluated during procurement and the difference in usability between systems could be revealed even with fewer measures than were used in our study. © 2019 American Psychological Association Inc. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe