ABSTRACT
This paper reports the process by which a personalized cancer treatment system was built, following a user-centered approach. We give some background on personalized cancer treatment, the particular tumor chemosensitivity assay supported by the system, as well as some quality and legal issues related to such health systems. We describe how Contextual Design was applied when building the system. Contextual design is a user-centered design technique involving seven steps. We also provide some details about the system implementation. Finally, we explain how the Think-Aloud protocol and Heuristic Evaluation methods were used to evaluate the system and report its results. A qualitative assessment from the users perspective is also provided. Results from the heuristic evaluation indicate that only one of ten heuristics was missing from the system, while five were partially covered and four were fully covered.
Subject(s)
Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor/methods , Equipment Design/methods , Neoplasms/drug therapy , Precision Medicine/methods , Adenosine Triphosphate , Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor/instrumentation , Equipment Design/instrumentation , Humans , Precision Medicine/instrumentation , User-Computer InterfaceABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Transitional care, assisting patients to move safely through multiple health care settings, may be insufficient for older Hispanic patients. PURPOSE: Describe home health care services referral rates for Hispanic and non-Hispanic White (NHW) patients and factors that influence case managers' (CMs') discharge planning processes. DESIGN: Organized by the Ethno-Cultural Gerontological Nursing Model, health records were reviewed ( n = 33,597 cases) and supplemented with qualitative description ( n = 8 CMs). FINDINGS: Controlling for gender, insurance type, age, and hospital length of stay, NHW older adults received more home health care services referrals (odds ratio = 1.23). Insurance coverage was the most frequent determinant of CMs' post-hospital care choices, rather than patients' being Hispanic. NHW older adults were more likely to have insurance than Hispanic older adults. IMPLICATIONS: Insurance coverage being CMs' primary consideration in determining patients' dispositions is a form of systems-level discrimination for Hispanic vulnerable groups, which combined with other hospital-level constraints, should be addressed with policy-level interventions.