MEETING MEMBERS OF THE TEAM!
So today I met some other members of the team including two other interns I will be working with named Pascal and Yathin.
In order from left to right: Pascal, Ed (that's me!) and Yathin
You can check out Pascal's blog here:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/pascalblog
Pascal has been taken the task of creating videos to instruct users on how to use different parts of the application.
And Yathin's blog is here:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/yathinblog
Yathin will be working closer with me to handle some of the coding, however both him and me are both kind of new to programming, so we will be helping more with planning and infrastructure concerns. We will also be working together to promote our projects via social media.
I will be working to integrate apple health kit products and telemedicine (which means internet enabled care.) The word Google Glass has apparently been bandied about. Woah... I'm SUPER EXCITED!
I also met Misael Aponte who will be doing more of the technical stuff for the site. He's not yet on the Icann website, but he is obviously enthusiastic, and looks to be a great addition to the team. Of course Samer, Jason and Dr. Atreja continue to impress.
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
I'm really a big fan of documentation, and reading this project's previous intern's work, particularly Jeremy's blog has provided a lot of quality insight as to where the project has been and where the project was headed while he was with the project. Providing a strong documentation pathway for an organization that cycles through workers is a powerful resource and I hope that my documentation will also provide quality information for those that will come after..
Jeremy's blog is available at the following address:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/jeremyblog
DEALING WITH ISSUES REGARDING PATIENT PARTICIPATION
Some concerns that I had about the project design were discussed at today's meeting. For example there are concerns that patient participation in app usage may be quite low.
I propose 3 ways to address this problem:
1. We may be able to achieve better participation without increasing costs on our end by getting insurance companies as stakeholders in health care costs to pay for some kind of reward system be it either reduced premiums or a gift of some sort. Of course it should be mandated that to achieve the reward, that the patient must engage in a regular amount of usage equal to or greater then that needed to achieve statistically measurable benefits for larger populations.
2. We may also be able to have our apps create some kind of reward system utilizing some sort of fiat currency, such as, stars, points, unlockable achievements, and so forth. Perhaps partnerships with apple or other hardware and or software manufacturers can be utilized to provide those that participate in a meaningful way with extended free trials of similar apps, and or discounts on relevant hardware devices. Also when people get "new toys" they love to play with them, so when people seem to slow down with their regular usage of the application, we should investigate somehow modifying the user experience in some way such that their experience isn't incredibly repetitive after a given number of uses. One way this could be done is to perhaps give them some kind of a new piece of hardware as people love playing with, "new toys."
3. What really makes computers exciting is how they are revolutionizing interaction and communication. Perhaps allowing users to monitor how they perform vs. others, or granting users that have updated their information enough times the title of something like, "Power User" might increase participation. (Something similar like this is often done in forums.) However we must be careful as users may just seek the title of, "Power User" and the quality of their interaction may suffer. As you may see from the following link: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS590US590&ion=1&ie=UTF-8&rct=j#q=+forum+artificially+inflating+post+count&safe=off
this behavior is an already existing phenomenon. This is also known as "plus onening," or "cool story bro thread inflation."
ACHIEVING USABLE DATA FROM THE APPLICATION
These solutions are dependent on the particular motivational desires of the patient however, the fact that participation in making log updates to the app is not randomly assigned but rather determined by the willful participation of the patient means that studying this population and the data created by them, will be complicated by Self Selection Bias, which is a known psychological phenomenon that obfuscates identifying causation.
I had a short discussion with Misael about how information is being collected as in terms of users accessing certain portions of the application.
For example a user may be visiting the quality of life graph and making updates more consistently then visiting the and updating the How I feel graph.
Pictured below is one screen that patients may interact with.
So today I met some other members of the team including two other interns I will be working with named Pascal and Yathin.
In order from left to right: Pascal, Ed (that's me!) and Yathin
You can check out Pascal's blog here:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/pascalblog
Pascal has been taken the task of creating videos to instruct users on how to use different parts of the application.
And Yathin's blog is here:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/yathinblog
Yathin will be working closer with me to handle some of the coding, however both him and me are both kind of new to programming, so we will be helping more with planning and infrastructure concerns. We will also be working together to promote our projects via social media.
I will be working to integrate apple health kit products and telemedicine (which means internet enabled care.) The word Google Glass has apparently been bandied about. Woah... I'm SUPER EXCITED!
I also met Misael Aponte who will be doing more of the technical stuff for the site. He's not yet on the Icann website, but he is obviously enthusiastic, and looks to be a great addition to the team. Of course Samer, Jason and Dr. Atreja continue to impress.
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
I'm really a big fan of documentation, and reading this project's previous intern's work, particularly Jeremy's blog has provided a lot of quality insight as to where the project has been and where the project was headed while he was with the project. Providing a strong documentation pathway for an organization that cycles through workers is a powerful resource and I hope that my documentation will also provide quality information for those that will come after..
Jeremy's blog is available at the following address:
http://www.iroq.mssm.edu/jeremyblog
DEALING WITH ISSUES REGARDING PATIENT PARTICIPATION
Some concerns that I had about the project design were discussed at today's meeting. For example there are concerns that patient participation in app usage may be quite low.
I propose 3 ways to address this problem:
1. We may be able to achieve better participation without increasing costs on our end by getting insurance companies as stakeholders in health care costs to pay for some kind of reward system be it either reduced premiums or a gift of some sort. Of course it should be mandated that to achieve the reward, that the patient must engage in a regular amount of usage equal to or greater then that needed to achieve statistically measurable benefits for larger populations.
2. We may also be able to have our apps create some kind of reward system utilizing some sort of fiat currency, such as, stars, points, unlockable achievements, and so forth. Perhaps partnerships with apple or other hardware and or software manufacturers can be utilized to provide those that participate in a meaningful way with extended free trials of similar apps, and or discounts on relevant hardware devices. Also when people get "new toys" they love to play with them, so when people seem to slow down with their regular usage of the application, we should investigate somehow modifying the user experience in some way such that their experience isn't incredibly repetitive after a given number of uses. One way this could be done is to perhaps give them some kind of a new piece of hardware as people love playing with, "new toys."
3. What really makes computers exciting is how they are revolutionizing interaction and communication. Perhaps allowing users to monitor how they perform vs. others, or granting users that have updated their information enough times the title of something like, "Power User" might increase participation. (Something similar like this is often done in forums.) However we must be careful as users may just seek the title of, "Power User" and the quality of their interaction may suffer. As you may see from the following link: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS590US590&ion=1&ie=UTF-8&rct=j#q=+forum+artificially+inflating+post+count&safe=off
this behavior is an already existing phenomenon. This is also known as "plus onening," or "cool story bro thread inflation."
ACHIEVING USABLE DATA FROM THE APPLICATION
These solutions are dependent on the particular motivational desires of the patient however, the fact that participation in making log updates to the app is not randomly assigned but rather determined by the willful participation of the patient means that studying this population and the data created by them, will be complicated by Self Selection Bias, which is a known psychological phenomenon that obfuscates identifying causation.
I had a short discussion with Misael about how information is being collected as in terms of users accessing certain portions of the application.
For example a user may be visiting the quality of life graph and making updates more consistently then visiting the and updating the How I feel graph.
Pictured below is one screen that patients may interact with.
It is possible that the users that engage more with the Quality of Care portion of this screen may have better or worse outcomes then those that engage more with the How I Feel portion of this application. While some analytics tools are currently attached to these existing pieces I do not yet know how this is set up. As I am assigned to assist in designing the application for the Apple Health Kit, I want to make sure that data collection remains consistent with current existing data collection practices. It is possible that after further discussion that we may expand out to collect more data on user experience such as time spent making decisions within the applications themselves. We still have to see how such data collection will impact the ability of the application to run smoothly and quickly and also to make sure that patient data is protected to an extent that is in compliance with HIPAA if applicable. We should also investigate if any existing standards or protocols exist to address information exchange between applications in regards to health care.
I also foresee that if a patient for example is getting a lot of positive feedback that the patient may start to interact more or less with the application. The patient may feel that all is going well and they don't need to continue to use the application, or on the other hand, they may like the positive reinforcement and start to use the application more. This variance is not ideal and we should look into ways to assure that we are doing everything we can to encourage users to maintain consistent interaction with our platform. I guess this is why I am particularly excited about working withe the apple health kit system, for it may be possible to collect data without the user having to consciously interact with the device, for example perhaps the first time the user touches their phone in the morning perhaps the phone may be able to take readings of the patient's body temperature, etc.
While a device like the one shown below requires extra interaction with the apple device,
I also foresee that if a patient for example is getting a lot of positive feedback that the patient may start to interact more or less with the application. The patient may feel that all is going well and they don't need to continue to use the application, or on the other hand, they may like the positive reinforcement and start to use the application more. This variance is not ideal and we should look into ways to assure that we are doing everything we can to encourage users to maintain consistent interaction with our platform. I guess this is why I am particularly excited about working withe the apple health kit system, for it may be possible to collect data without the user having to consciously interact with the device, for example perhaps the first time the user touches their phone in the morning perhaps the phone may be able to take readings of the patient's body temperature, etc.
While a device like the one shown below requires extra interaction with the apple device,
Ideally I believe that it would be nice if a device could collect patient information with minimal requirement of interaction.
I have spoken with Samer about an application which can look at a picture of your face and make interpretations about your oxygenation or hydration level (I forget which) based on different algorithms that read the level of coloration and elevation of the skin off of your bone structure.
So perhaps the first time a user uses their phone a picture could be taken of the user generating useful data as well as have their blood pulse rate taking via tactile sensors, etc. I'm sure I will find out more.
I'm also excited to have bookmarked and interacted with all the following sites writing reviews, subscribing, and liking where appropriate.
http://sinaiapplab.com/
https://twitter.com/SinaiAppLab
https://www.facebook.com/SinaiAppLab
Unfortunately my linkedin isn't up to date, but one of these days I'll get to it!
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sinai-app-lab
I encourage you to do the same!
I have spoken with Samer about an application which can look at a picture of your face and make interpretations about your oxygenation or hydration level (I forget which) based on different algorithms that read the level of coloration and elevation of the skin off of your bone structure.
So perhaps the first time a user uses their phone a picture could be taken of the user generating useful data as well as have their blood pulse rate taking via tactile sensors, etc. I'm sure I will find out more.
I'm also excited to have bookmarked and interacted with all the following sites writing reviews, subscribing, and liking where appropriate.
http://sinaiapplab.com/
https://twitter.com/SinaiAppLab
https://www.facebook.com/SinaiAppLab
Unfortunately my linkedin isn't up to date, but one of these days I'll get to it!
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sinai-app-lab
I encourage you to do the same!
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