Home Health Care: A Needs Assessment with Design Implications

A combination of survey and focus group activities was performed to investigate the functions, capabilities, and interface designs necessary to support home-based care providers. This study strongly verified that the most important factor in the design of a home health care interface was a clear understanding of the user population and their needs, capabilities, and limitations. Patients seen in home care situations are often unfamiliar with technology and have a number of disabilities that would need to be taken into account in the design. Many positive responses were received from home health care professionals on the idea of providing this service for relatively healthy families or for families with members in need of more long-term care.