Service Desk Calls in a Home-based Clinical Informatics Study: Supporting End Users in the Field

Home-based clinical informatics technologies are being developed to facilitate health care provision and management. Given the novelty of these technologies, end users such as patients and their formal and informal caregivers may require support during use. This paper presents a case study within the United States of the service desk calls generated over a 31-month period by patients enrolled in a large randomized field experiment, HeartCare II. This case study provides future deployers of home-based clinical information technologies with an understanding of the types of support that may be required during use. Our analysis reveals that calls to the service desk originated as a result of user problems, hardware problems, software problems, and internal communication problems among individuals involved in the delivery and use of the technology. Implications of these needs for support during use are also discussed.