Designing a Personal Health Application for Older Adults to Manage Medications: A Comprehensive Case Study

  • Authors:

  • Katie A. Siek;Danish U. Khan;Stephen E. Ross;Leah M. Haverhals;Jane Meyers;Steven R. Cali

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, USA 80309-0430;Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, USA 80309-0430;Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, USA 80202-1702;Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Denver, USA 80220;Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, USA 80309-0430;Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, USA 80217

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Medical Systems
  • Year:
  • 2011

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Older adults with multiple chronic conditions often go through care transitions where they move between care facilities or providers during their treatment. These transitions are often uncoordinated and can imperil patients by omitted, duplicative, or contradictory care plans. Older adults sometimes feel overwhelmed with the new responsibility of coordinating the care plan with providers and changing their medication regimes. In response, we developed a Lesser General Public License (LGPL) open source, web-based Personal Health Application (PHA) using an iterative participatory design process that provided older adults and their caregivers the ability to manage their personal health information. In this paper, we document the PHA design process from low-fidelity prototypes to high-fidelity prototypes over the course of six user studies. Our findings establish the imperative need for interdisciplinary research and collaboration among all stakeholders to create effective PHAs. We conclude with design guidelines that encourage researchers to gradually increase functionality as users become more proficient.