Abstract
BackgroundThe use of telehealth to monitor patients from home is on the rise. Telehealth technology is evaluated in a clinical trial with measures of health outcomes and cost-effectiveness. However, what happens between a technology and the patients is not investigated during a clinical trial—the telehealth technology remains as a “black box.” Meanwhile, three decades of research in the discipline of human-computer interaction (HCI) presents design, implementation, and evaluation of technologies with a primary emphasis on users. HCI research has exposed the importance of user experience (UX) as an essential part of technology development and evaluation.ObjectiveThis research investigates the UX of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) with a telehealth in-home monitoring device to manage T2D from home. We investigate how the UX during a clinical trial can be researched and what a clinical trial can learn from HCI research.MethodsWe adopted an ethnographic philosophy and conducted a contextual inquiry due to time limitations followed by semistructured interviews of 9 T2D patients. We defined the method as Clinical User-experience Evaluation (CUE). The patients were enrolled in a telehealth clinical trial of T2D; however, this research was an independent study conducted by information technologists and health researchers for a user-centered evaluation of telehealth.ResultsKey analytical findings were that patients valued the benefits of in-home monitoring, but the current device did not possess all functionalities that patients wanted. The results include patients’ experiences and emotions while using the device, patients’ perceived benefits of the device, and how patients domesticated the device. Further analysis showed the influence of the device on patients’ awareness, family involvement, and design implications for telehealth for T2D.ConclusionsHCI could complement telehealth clinical trials and uncover knowledge about T2D patients’ UX and future design implications. Through HCI we can look into the “black box” phenomenon of clinical trials and create patient-centered telehealth solutions.
Highlights
BackgroundType 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing diseases; the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) rose from 171 million persons affected in 2000 to 415 million in 2015 worldwide [1]
A nurse or health care provider is involved in T2D telehealth treatments continuously, while the technology intervention remains as a means of transferring data and facilitates the communication between patients and nurses for better management of T2D [5,6]
We looked at six common methods (Table 1) of human-computer interaction (HCI) to explore if we could use one or more of them during clinical trials to understand the user experience (UX) of patients with T2D with telehealth
Summary
BackgroundType 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing diseases; the prevalence of T2D rose from 171 million persons affected in 2000 to 415 million in 2015 worldwide [1]. Telehealth is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to provide clinical treatments over distances [4]. A nurse or health care provider is involved in T2D telehealth treatments continuously, while the technology intervention remains as a means of transferring data (eg, blood glucose, blood pressure) and facilitates the communication between patients and nurses for better management of T2D [5,6]. Telehealth technology is evaluated in a clinical trial with measures of health outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Objective: This research investigates the UX of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) with a telehealth in-home monitoring device to manage T2D from home. The patients were enrolled in a telehealth clinical trial of T2D; this research was an independent study conducted by information technologists and health researchers for a user-centered evaluation of telehealth. Through HCI we can look into the “black box” phenomenon of clinical trials and create patient-centered telehealth solutions
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