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Antibiotic stewardship is continuously evolving to incorporate results from novel research, clinical findings, and specialist recommendations. Numerous dedicated information sources, including web-based solutions, are available to keep medical practitioners informed. However, the provided information is often extensive, requiring users to extract the relevant facts. This study aimed to deliver an information platform that provides references, links, and information in a straightforward and engaging manner. Implementing a high-fidelity prototype prioritized medical and patient-oriented functionalities, structured around questions and quizzes. Additionally, the platform offers access to professional references, such as official healthcare guidelines and scientific articles. The development process adhered to design principles and included user testing with established usability measures (SUS, Nielsen’s heuristics), resulting in satisfactory scores from IT experts and somewhat lower scores from users. Although designed to cater to a broader range of users, more work is needed to improve usability for the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antibiotic stewardship is continuously evolving to incorporate results from novel research, clinical findings, and specialist recommendations. Numerous dedicated information sources, including web-based solutions, are available to keep medical practitioners informed. However, the provided information is often extensive, requiring users to extract the relevant facts. This study aimed to deliver an information platform that provides references, links, and information in a straightforward and engaging manner. Implementing a high-fidelity prototype prioritized medical and patient-oriented functionalities, structured around questions and quizzes. Additionally, the platform offers access to professional references, such as official healthcare guidelines and scientific articles. The development process adhered to design principles and included user testing with established usability measures (SUS, Nielsen's heuristics), resulting in satisfactory scores from IT experts and somewhat lower scores from users. Although designed to cater to a broader range of users, more work is needed to improve usability for the general public.

Healthcare systems worldwide have dedicated several years, special attention, and action toward improving safety for their patients. Although many innovative technological solutions have helped providers reduce medical errors, hospitalized patients lack access to these solutions, and face difficulties in having a proactive role in their safety. In this paper, we examine how patient-peer support can be a valuable resource for patients in the context of hospital safety. Through semi-structured interviews with 30 patients and caregivers at a pediatric and an adult hospital, we identify the potential benefits of incorporating patient-peer support into patient-facing technologies. Facilitating such support can provide patients with new avenues for engaging in, and improving, the quality and safety of their hospital care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a systematic investigation on the expectations of potential users of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies. More specifically it describes the efforts made to elicit users expectations for services of an AAL system that aims to both monitor older people fostering their independent living and preventing dangerous situations and also offers a valid help to their caregivers. The specific target of our work is older adults, with no critical pathological conditions, who wish to stay home as long as possible. The work proposes a plan for a rigorous systematization of the users needs and their validation based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques involving both the primary users (older users at home) and the secondary users (formal and informal caregivers) who constitute the network of persons around them. Four main areas relevant to the realization of personalized services have been identified that could help to support independent living and improve Quality of Life (QoL) which include the monitoring of Social Interaction, Physiological Data, Daily Activities and Environmental Data. The presented results are also consistent with the global theoretical framework of International Classification of the Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) which highlights the main factors contributions to independent living. This study also investigates the perceived usefulness and acceptance of specific services (considering both primary and secondary users perspective) that have been listed inside each category with the aim to indicate a clear priority level and preferences of users. The article concludes by providing insights on practical implications for the systems development, presenting concrete examples of possible use cases relevant for the AAL domain linked to the elicited user requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mediata app is a mobile application providing easy access to internet and social media for persons with acquired brain injury. This paper presents design, working hypotheses and expected results of a participative user experience study to evaluate the impact of the Mediata application on participation and autonomy of users with acquired brain injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision support systems for alert drug-drug interactions have been shown as valid strategy to reduce medical error. Even so the use of these systems has not been as expected, probably due to the lack of a suitable design. This study compares two interfaces, one of them developed using participatory design techniques (based on user centered design processes). This work showed that the use of these techniques improves satisfaction, effectiveness and efficiency in an alert system for drug-drug interactions, a fact that was evident in specific situations such as the decrease of errors to meet the specified task, the time, the workload optimization and users overall satisfaction with the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of decision support systems, in the point of care, to alert drug-drug interactions has been shown to improve quality of care. Still, the use of these systems has not been as expected, it is believed, because of the difficulties in their knowledge databases; errors in the generation of the alerts and the lack of a suitable design. This study expands on the development of alerts using participatory design techniques based on user centered design process. This work was undertaken in three stages (inquiry, participatory design and usability testing) it showed that the use of these techniques improves satisfaction, effectiveness and efficiency in an alert system for drug-drug interactions, a fact that was evident in specific situations such as the decrease of errors to meet the specified task, the time, the workload optimization and users overall satisfaction in the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Service robots may offer an innovative assistive solution to improve the quality of life of frail elderly people, by assisting them in specific situations identified as relevant to maintain independence. Objective: This paper describes the results of a qualitative and quantitative research based on a user-centered methodology carried out within the EU-funded project "Multi-Role Shadow Robotic System for Independent Living" (SRS), aiming to generate user requirements and realistic usage scenarios maximizing the alignment with users' needs, perceptions, feelings and rights. Methods: A qualitative and quantitative research - based on focus groups (59 participants) and questionnaires (129 respondents) - was carried out in three countries: Italy, Spain and Germany. The survey involved prospective end-users (elderly people and family members who care for them), caregivers, and geriatric experts. Results: Results show that despite elderly people encounter difficulties in many activities of daily life, a semi-autonomous remotely-controlled and self-learning service robot has been judged an interesting solution only in some circumstances. Monitoring and managing emergency situations, helping with reaching, fetching and carrying objects that are too heavy or positioned in unreachable places: these are tasks for which robotic support has been widely accepted, while tasks involving direct physical contact between the person and the robot are not appreciated instead. Relatives of the elderly could act as remote operators; however, family psychological burden and time restrictions should be considered too. Conclusions: A tele-operated robotic system may be of help for frail elderly people. In certain cases this solution may be effective only in conjunction with a 24-hour professional Service Centre able to manage tele-operation when relatives are not available. This survey adds further tokens of knowledge to previous literature studies on this subject; it compares the potential users' and the professionals' views; it helps identifying potentially successful applications of tele-operated robots in the care of elderly people living at home. The results obtained by the present study, generated specific requirements and the first versions of concrete usage scenarios, enabling designers and technologists to start with a first development phase of the SRS concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is an interactive application that is used to facilitate the process of decisionmaking in a clinical context. Developing a usable CDSS is a challenging process; mostly because of the complex nature of domain knowledge and the context of use of those systems. This paper describes how a user centered design (UCD) approach can be used in a clinical context for developing a CDSS. In our effort, a design-based research methodology has been used. The outcomes of this work are as follow; a customized UCD approach is suggested that combines UCD and openEHR. Moreover, the GUI developed in the design phase and the result of the GUI evaluation is briefly presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare industry is automating clinical documentation at the point of care – taking us from paper documentation to an electronic health record (EHR). Designing user-friendly, intuitive systems is challenging, and has motivated hospitals to evaluate and adopt new and safer practices to help reduce the contribution that technology plays in healthcare error. To accomplish this, healthcare is evaluating how other industries, like aviation, have successfully applied human factors to system design. Recent healthcare research has demonstrated the potential value of human factors in information technology (IT) projects. This article provides a synthesis of research on the application of human factors to the design and development of the electronic health record and makes apparent the need for human factors education for nurses and IT professionals involved in EHR design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), a quarter of the world population is affected with metabolic syndrome (MS). The paper describes the development process of a Personal Health Record System (PHR) for the management of MS. Following the recommendations of ISO 9241-210:2010, a PHR for the promotion of physical activity and healthy nutrition was implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to describe the design and implementation of a Personal Health Record System (PHR-S) for supporting monitoring of blood glucose in diabetes mellitus type 2 patients. The paper describes a survey applied in order to elicit the specific ICT needs of Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 patients. Based on the requirements, a web application "GlucoseDataManager" was implanted and integrated into a local deployed IndivoHealth PHR-S platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenya ranks among the twenty-two countries that collectively contribute about 80% of the world's Tuberculosis cases; with a 50-200 fold increased risk of tuberculosis in HIV infected persons versus non-HIV hosts. Contemporaneously, there is an increase in mobile penetration and its use to support healthcare throughout Africa. Many are skeptical that such m-health solutions are unsustainable and not scalable. We seek to design a scalable, pervasive m-health solution for Tuberculosis care to become a use case for sustainable and scalable health IT in limited resource settings. We combine agile design principles and user-centered design to develop the architecture needed for this initiative. Furthermore, the architecture runs on multiple devices integrated to deliver functionality critical for successful Health IT implementation in limited resource settings. It is anticipated that once fully implemented, the proposed m-health solution will facilitate superior monitoring and management of Tuberculosis and thereby reduce the alarming statistic regarding this disease in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]