Designing Telehealth for an Aging Population: A Human Factors Perspective

by Neil Charness, George Demiris, Elizabeth Krupinski

Overview

As simple and straightforward as two health professionals conferring over the telephone or as complex and sophisticated as robotic surgery between facilities at different ends of the globe, telehealth is an increasingly frequent component in healthcare. A primer on the human factors issues that can influence how older adults interact with telehealth systems, Designing Telehealth for an Aging Population: A Human Factors Perspective examines the new ways patients and healthcare providers communicate to achieve the same or better outcomes than with traditional face-to-face healthcare.

The authors examine older adult capabilities and provide standards and guidelines for telehealth design, enlivened by clinical examples and tutorials on human factors methodologies. They take a systematic look at how the use of human factors principles can facilitate the successful development, deployment, and maintenance of telehealth technology to better serve the aging population.

The authors have carefully stayed away from academic writing, distilling their experience in the form of basic observations and principles drawn from their work. They include suggested readings at the end of each chapter that supply the research underpinning their recommendations. The first reference to cover older adult users in an area that will only get bigger, this book sets itself apart by providing focused coverage of the human factors issues specific to aging populations and practical advice on how to accommodate them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439825297
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Series:	Human Factors and Aging Series
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Neil Charness is William G. Chase Professor of Psychology and an Associate of the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State University. He received his B.A. from McGill University, and M.S. and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to coming to Florida, he was on the faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo in Canada. Neil's research focuses on human factors approaches to aging and technology use, older driver and pedestrian safety, and age and expert performance. Neil is a fellow of Association of Psychological Science, American Psychological Association (APA), Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), the Gerontological Society of America, and an honorary member of the International Society for Gerontechnology. He is a past editor of the Psychology section of the Canadian Journal on Aging/Revue Canadienne du Vieillissement, and a past president of Adult Development and Aging Divisions of APA and CPA. He is currently chair of the Human Factors Special Interest Group of the American Telemedicine Association.Dr. Krupinski is a Professor at the University of Arizona in the Departments of Radiology, Psychology and Public Health, and she is Vice Chair of Research in Radiology. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University, MA from Montclair State College and PhD from Temple University, all in Experimental Psychology. Her main interests are in medical image perception, assessment of observer performance, medical decision making, and human factors. She is Associate Director of Evaluation for the Arizona Telemedicine Program. She has published extensively in these areas, and has presented at conferences nationally and internationally. She serves on the Editorial Boards of a number of journals in both radiology and telemedicine, and on review panels for NIH, DoD, FDA and TATRC. She is Past Chair of th

Table of Contents

Introduction and Purpose of this Volume. Know the Health Care User. Health Care Environments and their Characteristics. Telemedicine Fields and Human Factors Issues. Standards and Guidelines. Tutorials on Usability Testing, Setting up Diagnostics, and Health Status Monitoring. Tutorial on Conducting Focus Groups. The Future, Resources, and Conclusions.