Consumers are open to using mobile technology

In the United States, 90% of adults use mobile phones, 58% use a smartphone, and over half of the adult population owns a tablet device. This situation is not unique to the US. In Australia, 65% of the population owns a smartphone, and this proportion is rising rapidly: in May, 8.7 million Australians owned a smartphone, in May, this number increased by 29% to reach 11.9 million. Similarly in Europe, the number of smartphone users grew by 30% over. With the rapid uptake and use of smartphone technology, it is not surprising that there has been a surge in the development of mobile applications (apps) for health. The number of mobile health applications currently available is estimated to be over 100,000. Many of these apps are designed to be used by patients with chronic diseases (31%), and those interested in health and fitness (28%), or by healthcare providers (14%). The functions or features of mobile health apps are many and varied, including for example, reminders and prompts to stay on track with medications, medical reference material and resources, the ability to track and display patients’ health parameters, locate near-by doctors and pharmacies, and diaries (for patients to record symptoms, feelings, food, alcohol and medication intake).

Research has shown that consumers are open to using mobile technology for health management and education. For example, a survey administered to teenagers and parents/caregivers at pediatric clinics in the US revealed that most owned a smartphone (84%) and most were interested in using medical apps, examples applications you can find here www.chargiesapp.com/. Similarly, 35% of outpatient mental health patients older than 60 years owned a smartphone and 71% indicated they were interested in using a mobile application to track their mental health condition. With the explosive increase in the number of mobile applications becoming available to consumers and health professionals, concerns have been raised about the quality and effectiveness of the systems developed. It has been suggested that many apps are being made available to the public in the absence of systematic or rigorous approaches to design, development, or evaluation. As a result, the use, usability and value of many mobile apps may be less than ideal.

Human Factors could significantly contribute to the enhanced design, use and evaluation of mobile apps. Human Factors is the discipline that applies evidence-based methods and knowledge about people to design, evaluate, and improve the interaction between people, systems (including technology), and organizations. Human Factors has received much attention within the field of medical informatics over the last decade, as its importance is increasingly being recognized and its methods applied. For example, The International Journal of Medical Informatics published a special issue on ‘Human factors and the implementation of health information technology’, and inputting the term ‘human factors’ into The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association’s search box in May identified 2030 articles.

Human factors is relevant to all stages of technology design, development, and evaluation. Adopting a user-centered approach to technology design is clearly an important element in increasing the likelihood of the fit between people and the technology. Human factors researchers have an armory of data collection (typically user interviews, questionnaires, and in situ and lab-based observations), and analysis methods (e.g. task analysis, process charting, heuristic analysis) to establish the fit between a system (e.g. technology) and its user. These techniques are also useful in the post-implementation evaluation stage when applied to the observation of actual users in naturalistic settings.