Hälsokollen - An adaptable eHealth technology for children with long-term illnesses Exploring ways to enhance children’s involvement in their own health care

Abstract

The aim of this project was to explore a way of enhancing children with long-term illnesses’ involvement in their own health care through technology, and to provide new insights to the field of interaction design and children. The project was conducted together with Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. Along with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recently has become a law in Sweden, the request from the hospital was to create a digital tool that can be used as the child’s own communication channel with the nursing staff, with the objective of an increased active participation among the patients. Similar work within this area has been done previous to this project, but they are either created specifically for certain illnesses or cognitive impairments, or have a different objective than this project. To meet the aim of this project, the research question What design guidelines should be taken into consideration when designing an adaptable eHealth technology for 5 to 18 year old children?, followed by the sub-question What is a plausible design suggestion of such an eHealth technology, to be used by 5 to 18 year old children with long-term illnesses within Swedish health care?, was created. The research questions were answered by performing an iterative and user-centered design process, were methods such as ideation sessions, interviews with stakeholders and usability tests of different prototypes of the digital tool, which came to be called Hälsokollen, were performed. The overall result showed that the general idea of Hälsokollen, as well as its design, was widely appreciated and accepted by the majority of people who evaluated it, including the different stakeholders. The 12 guidelines created for future designs of adaptable eHealth technologies for children, concludes a set of interesting findings made in this project, related to themes such as content, design, interaction and experience of using an adaptable eHealth technology like Hälsokollen. There are however still room for improvement and many suggestions of alternative solutions, which fosters potential future development of Hälsokollen and the design guidelines created.