ABSTRACT
Relational agents (RAs) have shown effectiveness in various health interventions with and without healthcare professionals (HCPs) and hospital facilities. RAs have not been widely researched in COVID-19 context, although they can give health interventions during the pandemic. Addressing this gap, this work presents an early usability evaluation of a prototypical RA, which is iteratively designed and developed in collaboration with infected patients (n=21) and two groups of HCPs (n=19, n=16) to aid COVID-19 patients at various stages about four main tasks: testing guidance, support during self-isolation, handling emergency situations, and promoting post-infection mental well-being. The prototype obtained an average score of 58.82 on the system usability scale (SUS) after being evaluated by 98 people. This result implies that the suggested design still needs to be improved for greater usability and adoption. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Introduction Adults with congenital heart disease (ACHD) are a growing, heterogeneous group requiring lifelong follow-up to detect occurrence of known complications. In contrast to other cardiovascular disorders and chronic conditions, those with ACHD generally remain within the specialist tertiary hospital setting throughout their lives. The costs and burden on the patient of outpatient healthcare are increasingly recognised in the wider healthcare setting. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate present ambulatory healthcare in ACHD for ability to detect clinically relevant problems and consider patient and service provider costs. An additional aim was to define levels of non-attendance. We also summarise clinic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic when a hybrid approach of virtual and face to face consultations were arranged according to clinician perceived priority.Methods The clinic attendances of 100 patients attending the general ACHD clinic, selected by hospital number to minimise bias, were reviewed over a five-year period (1/01/2014-30/11/2019) and the Covid 19 period (23/03/2020-23/07/2021) by interrogation of the electronic patient record. This period represented 1/6 of their total lifetime clinic attendance. Results100 patients (Table 1) were invited to clinic annually. Non-attendance was 10% with 15 patients recurrently non-attending. 80% (459/ 575) of appointments resulted in no decision other than continued review (Figure 1). Electrocardiograms and echocardiograms were performed frequently but new findings were rare (5.1% and 4.0%). Other investigations required separate attendance. Decision-making was more common with higher ACHD AP class and new symptoms. There were 25 elective admissions, and 40 emergency admissions over half following appointments where no notable findings were recorded (Figure 2). Distance travelled to the ACHD clinic, which was supported by six clinical staff, was 14.9km (range 1.6-265) resulting in an estimated 433-564 workdays lost. During Covid 19, 56% appointments were in-person;41% telephone;5% video. Decisions were made at 37% in-person and 19% virtual consultations. Non-attendance was 3.9% and there were 8 emergency admissions. Conclusion The primary purpose of ACHD ambulatory care is surveillance. Despite this, emergency hospital admissions exceed elective hospital admissions. There is a high burden of care for patient and healthcare provider with the traditional outpatient model. The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated provision of ambulatory care in a different way and should encourage development of a new more patient-centred approach to ambulatory care delivery in ACHD.
ABSTRACT
Relational Agents (RAs) may be helpful in supporting the social distancing mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing essential health services to patients at home and eliminating the need for in-person hospital visits. We conceptualized and developed a prototypical RA to visualize how this can be done in four major COVID-19 related health scenarios. In this paper, we present acceptance evaluation of the proposed RA using a survey based approach. A total of 105 participants were asked to interact with and analyze the prototype. Participants then indicated perceived usefulness and willingness to accept and use the proposed RA on Likert scales. The findings show that overall 80.77% of participants found the suggested RA useful. 59.67% of participants accepted it as an alternative to healthcare professionals as long as the scenario is not life-threatening. Furthermore, 78.29% of the participants indicated that they would be willing to use the proposed RA, if needed. Further research is needed to understand what factors can improve the uptake of the proposed RA among individuals ≤ 30 years and with no COVID-19 infection history. © 2022, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.
ABSTRACT
There does not exist an appropriate mobile health (mHealth) app to address healthcare workers’ (HCWs) stress management needs, even though mobile apps have shown efficacy in improving mental health of various populations. Inspired by our prior design requirements study, we designed a prototype mobile app to provide stress management support to HCWs in their workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. The app featured six components that aimed to provide social support, wellness monitoring, stress tracking, and health nudges. Twenty two HCWs validated the design of a proposed app by providing feedback on the prototypical implementation of each component. 54.6% participants rated the app as either useful or very useful and 59.1% were willing to use it. Most participants voted to include features related to social support and health nudges, modify features that supported wellness monitoring, and remove COVID-19 symptom checking and intelligent chatbot. The thematic analysis of the qualitative data helped uncover concerns, perceived benefits, and suggestions for improving these features. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for designing peer-to-peer support systems, health nudges, and intelligent chatbots aimed at providing stress management support to HCWs in their workplaces. © 2022, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.
ABSTRACT
User personas play a crucial role in user-centered design (UCD) methodology-based technology development. In this way, appropriate user personas improve the design of interaction interfaces between a relational agent (RA) and its users, particularly when the RA is about delivering health services to the general population. This article discusses the approach for establishing patient personas to help in designing and developing interaction scenarios and dialogues between a health service RA and its target users during various COVID-19 stages. We employed a mixed-method research that was completed in two phases involving both healthcare professionals (HCPs) and individuals who have encountered COVID-19. Our approach resulted in the identification of three COVID-19 related user personas i.e., experiencing symptoms, COVID-19 positive with mild symptoms, and recovering from COVID-19. © 2021 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
State of the art suggests that Relational Agents (RAs) can alleviate escalated demands of health care services during a pandemic. Inspired by these facts, this work presents the design, significance, and initial evaluation of a prototype RA that supports people amid the COVID-19 crisis. The prototype is the end-result of an analysis that investigated interviews of patients (n = 12) and health care professionals (HCPs) (n = 19). The study established three example scenarios (i.e., testing guidance, home care, and post-recovery care) where RA can support people during COVID-19. Furthermore, a user evaluation is conducted with target users (n = 87) to validate the design of the proposed system and explore its acceptance among the target population. Findings from the evaluation indicate that the proposed RA was acceptable to the target users and further development of the prototype is justified. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.