Abstract

We were approached by a group of healthcare providers who are involved in the care of chronic patients looking for potential technologies to facilitate the process of reviewing patient-generated data during clinical visits. Aiming at understanding the healthcare providers’ attitudes towards reviewing patient-generated data, we (1) conducted a focus group with a mixed group of healthcare providers. Next, to gain the patients’ perspectives, we (2) interviewed eight chronic patients, collected a sample of their data and designed a series of visualizations representing patient data we collected. Last, we (3) sought feedback on the visualization designs from healthcare providers who requested this exploration. We found four factors shaping patient-generated data: data & context, patient’s motivation, patient’s time commitment, and patient’s support circle. Informed by the results of our studies, we discussed the importance of designing patient-generated visualizations for individuals by considering both patient and healthcare provider rather than designing with the purpose of generalization and provided guidelines for designing future patient-generated data visualizations.

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Abstract

Establishing strong patient-provider communication during clinical visits can have positive impacts on patient health outcomes. On the other hand, miscommunication between patients and healthcare providers can cause harm or in extreme cases cause death to patients. Factors such as healthcare providers' limited time, inefficient clinical environments, and patients' difficulties in communicating their concerns can be the causes of this miscommunication. In this thesis, I explore the design of visualizations to facilitate communication between healthcare providers and patients during clinical visits. In the first part (i) of this thesis, I present the results of a literature review I have conducted to expand our understanding of patients' and providers' communication challenges during in-clinic visits. In the second phase (ii) I discuss the results of interviews with healthcare providers and I contrast and compare patients' and providers' perspectives in the context of each other to unveil the roots of their communication challenges. Among the communication challenges we identified, I focus on exploring the challenges and the realities patients and healthcare providers face tracking and sharing patient-generated health data. In the third part of this dissertation (iii), I discuss the results of a series of interviews and focus groups with patients and healthcare providers I have conducted to gain a better understanding of patient-generated data communication challenges. I leverage this understanding to propose potential visualization designs representing patient-generated data collections to improve the process of reviewing and communicating these data between patients and healthcare providers. In the fourth part of this dissertation (iv), I discuss the results of the interviews with healthcare providers seeking their reflection on the proposed visualization designs. Finally, in collaboration with our healthcare provider team in Alberta Healthcare Services, I implement the prototypes of a number of carefully selected visualization designs. In the last part of this dissertation (v), I outline insights, lessons learned, and future research directions that arise from these studies and the design process. I hope this research provides more support for considering patients' and healthcare providers' individualities when designing technologies and visualizations in healthcare settings.

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