UC Irvine

This qualitative study is a result of conducting 6 month long observations and interviews of older patients in the senior health center at the University of California, Irvine medical center. The study revealed three areas within which challenges for older adults were encountered. These areas include 1) Information work management 2) Resource utilization and 3) Caregiver facilitation. The challenges within 1) Information work management include a) Lack of information work organization strategy, b) Caregiver responsibility co-ordination, c) Patient aggregated data exchange limitations, d) Comprehension challenges of specialized information, e) Patient medical history organization and retrieval limitations, f) Health care agenda planning barriers g) Lack of comprehensive analysis of healthcare outcomes. The challenges within 2) Resource utilization include a) Emotional barriers to resource use b) Lack of direction during resource use c) Lack of resource support for vital sign tracking and reporting. The challenges within 1) Caregiver facilitation include a) Privacy and access challenges and b) Task co-ordination. These challenges encountered are demonstrated during the “timelines of healthcare preparation” of before, during and after a medical visit.

These challenges present potential technology development and design opportunities for health informatics researchers and healthcare designers. In this work, challenges encountered and opportunities for design have been discussed by considering the three phases of 1) pre-visit information preparation, 2) facilitation of information exchange during the medical visit and 3) assistance during task execution after the visit.