Designing Interactive Systems to Mediate Communication Between Formal and Informal Caregivers in Aged Care

Abstract

Previous work has focused on designing and evaluating information communication technology (ICT) tools for improving the coordination, organization of care practices, and to a less extent, the mediation of care communication among various involved actors. Our work contributes to addressing this gap with a specific emphasis on aged care, exploring communication practices, related challenges and design principles that should guide the design of technology-mediated information sharing. We do this by conducting three sets of user studies iterating on design mockups of increasing fidelity, through semi-structured interviews and workshops with nursing home (NH) staff and residents' family members in four Italian nursing homes. The qualitative and quantitative results point to the potential of computer-mediated information sharing in this context, and to the importance (and challenges) of tailoring information and presentation to people's needs and traits, and assisting care professionals in managing the information flow and proper communication.

Keywords

• E-health
• aged care
• sharing
• information architectures
• information design
• human computer interaction