Designing IT Systems to support the Chronic Wound Treatment Process in Healthcare

Sammanfattning: Chronic wounds are both a burden for patients and a major cost factor for a developed country's health budget. This research project investigates into designing IT systems for the treatment of chronic wounds by focusing on sharing, retrieving and entering information. To understand the context and the users, a pre-study was conducted followed by semi-structured interviews. The data gathered through the semi-structured interviews was analysed by applying a thematic analysis which resulted in five major themes. Based on these themes, problems were identified and solutions provided in the form of functional and non-functional requirements for an IT system. The major requirements are that the system should 1) provide fast and easy access to relevant information, 2) be easy to use, 3) adapt to the work environment, 4) reflect on established work processes and 5) focus on the user’s expectations and behaviour. A lowfidelity prototype was created based on the identified requirements and evaluated by co ducting a focus group. Overall, the feedback from the focus group was positive.