Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 8, numbers 3 and 4, 2016 // View article

DiClas-Grid Discussing and Classifying eHealth Interventions

Authors:
Saskia Akkersdijk
Saskia Kelders
Annemarie Braakman
Lisette van Gemert-Pijnen

Keywords: eHealth; discussion; classification; evaluation; design.

Abstract:
It is often unclear why one eHealth application is successful and the other is not, because eHealth is usually approached as a black box. Evaluation is often done in the same way for treatment like and non-treatment like application, with a focus on effects and outcomes. This leads to applications being wrongfully put away, because their expected measurements did not performed as well as expected. But in reality, it may not be ‘fair’ to use these measurements for these applications. Based on discussions around the terms of user and usage, as well as differences found among eHealth application when looking at the literature, two dimensions were selected. These dimensions help discussion needed to make conscious choices during the (re)design and evaluation process of eHealth applications and to opening the black box. These two continuous dimensions are: use-structure and caregiver involvement. Combining them in a grid results into the DiClas-grid. The position on the DiClas-grid influences what a 'user' and 'usage' means in the application, but also has implications for how to best evaluate and (re)design the application. To further help facilitating discussion, six complementing dimensions to the DiClas-grid are discussed. The DiClas-grid is a discussion and classification tool that can help make conscious choices in (re)design and evaluation of applications.

Pages: 267 to 276

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2016. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2016

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2660