Using Human-Centered Design to Build a Digital Health Advisor for Patients With Complex Needs: Persona and Prototype Development
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Twenty years ago, a "Guardian Angel" or comprehensive digital health advisor was proposed to empower patients to better manage their own health. This is now technically feasible, but most digital applications have narrow functions and target the relatively healthy, with few designed for those with the greatest needs. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the research was to identify unmet needs and key features of a general digital health advisor for frail elderly and people with multiple chronic conditions and their caregivers. METHODS: In-depth interviews were used to develop personas and use cases, and iterative feedback from participants informed the creation of a low-fidelity prototype of a digital health advisor. Results were shared with developers, investors, regulators, and health system leaders for suggestions on how this could be developed and disseminated. RESULTS: Patients highlighted the following goals: "live my life," "love my life," "manage my health," and "feel understood." Patients and caregivers reported interest in four functions to address these goals: tracking and insights, advice and information, providing a holistic picture of the patient, and coordination and communication. Experts and system stakeholders felt the prototype was technically feasible, and that while health care delivery organizations could help disseminate such a tool, it should be done in partnership with consumer-focused organizations. CONCLUSIONS: This study describes the key features of a comprehensive digital health advisor, but to spur its development, we need to clarify the business case and address the policy, organizational, and cultural barriers to creating tools that put patients and their goals at the center of the health system.
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User-centered design is important for digital health uptake and should entail user engagement in co-design, customization to personal needs and preferences, and feedback evaluations.
“Second, the importance of user-centered design was repeatedly mentioned in the literature, which should entail user engagement in co-design, customization to personal needs and preferences, and feedback evaluations22,87.”
From Digital health interventions for non-communicable disease management in primary health care in low-and middle-income countries (2023) · cites this paper as [87]
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“…including cancer (Benedict et al., 2021; Nygren et al., 2017; Papadakos et al., 2017; Wärnestål et al., 2017), patients with complex needs (Bhattacharyya et al., 2019), chronic illness care (Fore et al., 2013), multiple sclerosis (Giunti et al., 2018), hypertension selfmanagement (Duan…”
Background
- Authors
- Bhattacharyya, O., Mossman, K., Gustafsson, L., & Schneider, E. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Commonwealth Fund (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bhattacharyya, Onil
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2019-05-09
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- e10318
- ISSN
- 1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6532339
- OpenAlex
- W2907799275
- Cited by
- 82
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 6.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Commonwealth Fund
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Persona Design and Applications
- Keywords
- guardian angels, human-centered design, frail elderly, multimorbidity, caregivers, complex care needs, personas, low-fidelity prototypes, patient empowerment, unmet needs, stakeholder engagement, implementation barriers
- MeSH terms
- Chronic Disease, Delivery of Health Care, Health Planning, Humans, Research Design
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