Teresa Zayas-Cabán

Field-Based Human Factors in Home and Community Settings: Challenges and Strategies

Studies of complex health and healthcare phenomena such as transitions of care, chronic disease management, or care coordination, often require field work spanning people, time, and place. The scope of such field work often includes patients and their families and settings such as the home and community. Human factors researchers are identifying the challenges associated with conducting such work and are developing practical strategies. This panel gathers human factors experts to address the question: What are the challenges to and strategies for conducting human factors field research on health and healthcare with multiple individuals including patients, over longer periods of time, and across settings including the (patient) home and community? Panelists answer this question by describing their personal experiences with multiple studies and provide vignettes for grounding an interactive panelist-audience discussion.

Improving the Effectiveness of Consumer Health IT

Many of the most successful health information technology (IT) applications have made it easier for clinicians to provide high-quality care to patients. However, despite the demonstrated effectiveness of consumer health IT applications to improve health outcomes, their uptake lags. Improved design of consumer health IT applications may enable broader acceptance and increase use. Thus, a project supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) was conducted to uncover design methods used in other industries that might be extended to the design of consumer health IT applications. This paper summarizes the findings from that project.