Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
health-care payers). Each party is clearly more sensible to different aspects understood by
the use of this type of solution: Availability and ease of use to increase the intensity and
duration of treatments, new opportunities to optimize recovery and patient follow-up, and
a general reduction in the costs of treatment sessions. All of these expectations will pass
through a kind of “cultural” evolution in understanding and conception, i.e., passing from
the present “new tool application” to a “service-centered” adoption concept, which means
the parallel growth of
•
Technological solutions:
Reliable, replicable, easy to use, low-cost, integrated, and
interoperable.
•
Clinical consensus:
Convergence about solutions, validation criteria, adoption, and
service shaping.
•
Education:
Mostly of the personnel involved in health-care supplier applications
as an integral part of their curricular or CME (Continuous Medical Education)
provisions.
•
Reimbursement policy:
Regional/national rules to recognize the cost of teletreat-
ments as they will be covered by private or public allowances.
•
User acceptance:
As a routine service, therapy at home (even in the absence of a
rehab professional) should involve the final beneficiary with a careful assessment
of needs and preferences.
Leaving the so-called “pilot phase”, all of these aspects will be taken into account because
they could support the next evolution/adoption of innovative technological solutions.
These processes are placed inside of the more general frame of “personalized medicine,”
which will be the growing trend for the future dealing with genomics, pharmacogenom-
ics, predictive models, cultural and ethical issues, etc.
16.4 Conclusions
The two studies presented in this chapter discussed the design of two kinds of technology:
one to simplify the use of web technology in daily life (WhatsOnWeb) and one to improve
the telemedicine tool applied in the rehabilitation processes (Nu!Reha Desk). These tech-
nologies, by the use of the user-centered design perspective, aim to open up new pos-
sibilities of well-being for disabled users by widening user access and management of
information (WhatsOnWeb) or to access a rehabilitation process despite the physical bar-
riers (Nu!Reha Desk). These two studies implicitly underline the important role played by
the user-centered design process for the improvement of users' daily lives and well-being,
showing the new kind of technological solutions that, on the one hand, allow users to
work in the physical environment by the mediation of the virtual one (Nu!Reha), and on
the other (WhatsOnWeb) to simplify the interaction of the users with the virtual systems.
The two studies show that the most important way forward for the evolution of interac-
tion technologies is strictly focused on the design of the relationship between the users
and the technology to overcome the barriers due to both the physical and the virtual
environment.
