Complementing a Clinical Trial With Human-Computer Interaction: Patients' User Experience With Telehealth

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Diabetes Management

Background:

• Telehealth monitoring for home-based patient care is increasingly adopted.
• Clinical trials often treat telehealth as a "black box," neglecting user experience (UX).
• Human-computer interaction (HCI) research emphasizes user-centered technology design and evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the user experience (UX) of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) patients using telehealth in-home monitoring.
• To explore how UX research can be integrated into clinical trials.
• To understand how HCI principles can inform telehealth design for T2D management.

Main Methods:

• An ethnographic philosophy and contextual inquiry were employed.
• Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 T2D patients enrolled in a telehealth clinical trial.
• The Clinical User-experience Evaluation (CUE) method was defined for this user-centered telehealth evaluation.

Main Results:

• Patients recognized the advantages of in-home monitoring but identified unmet functional needs in the current device.
• Findings detail patient experiences, emotions, perceived benefits, and device "domestication."
• The study revealed the device's impact on patient awareness, family engagement, and offered design implications for T2D telehealth.

Conclusions:

• HCI research can enhance telehealth clinical trials by uncovering T2D patient UX insights.
• Integrating HCI can illuminate the "black box" of clinical trials.
• This approach facilitates the creation of more patient-centered telehealth solutions.