Designing eHealth interventions for children with complex care needs requires continuous stakeholder collaboration...

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Patient Care Transitions
• Pediatric Healthcare

Background:

• Hospital-to-home (H2H) transitions present significant challenges for families of children with medical complexity (CMC) and healthcare professionals (HCP).
• Existing transition processes often lack integrated support, leading to reactive rather than anticipatory care.
• There is a need for improved eHealth interventions to support CMC families and HCP during H2H transitions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To gain deeper insights into the H2H transition process for CMC families and HCP.
• To develop and evaluate eHealth interventions for improving H2H transitions.
• To involve CMC families and HCP as end-users in an iterative design process.

Main Methods:

• A 20-week collaborative approach involving the Dutch Transitional Care Unit consortium, healthcare professionals (HCP), and CMC families.
• Utilized the agile SCREAM approach, integrating Design Thinking methods across five iterative sprints.
• Employed continuous communication to facilitate rapid adaptation and refinement of solutions.

Main Results:

• Identified three critical domains: care coordination, social wellbeing, and emotional support, important to all stakeholders.
• Developed a prototype application, 'Our Care Team', specifically designed to address H2H transition needs.
• The iterative, collaborative process ensured the application met the needs of both CMC families and HCP.

Conclusions:

• Adaptive interventions are crucial for complex H2H transitions involving CMC families.
• Empowering all stakeholders through collaborative eHealth solutions promotes anticipatory transitional care.
• Co-designing eHealth solutions with end-users ensures greater relevance and effectiveness.