Patient-centered eHealth describe a group of digital technologies developed to support specific health interventions. The notion covers, for instance, telemedicine (technologies developed to support care at a distance) or self-monitoring systems (e.g. wearables). Patient-centered eHealth has a well-recognized potential for supporting the interaction between patients and health professionals and to empower citizens in managing their own condition. This is in particular important for patients living with chronic diseases such as heart arrhythmia, diabetes, and COPD.
However, patient centered eHealth is also known to be notoriously challenging to design and implementing in order to achieve the wanted health outcomes. One reason is that this requires a deep understanding of both the clinical principles and practices behind, the potentials and constraints of the digital technologies, and the patients lived experiences of living with the disease. Hence, this project invites students to partake in either user-driven design of patient-centered eHealth or critical studies focusing on the practical use of patient-centered eHealth.
This type of project can be based on a variety of cases, including cases from general practice, hospitals, and municipal healthcare. Students interested in this type of project are encouraged to either (a) propose as case that they find interesting and, if possible, a potential partner (private or public organization) that would be possible to collaborate with on the project or (b) discuss possible cases with the supervisor.
A project within this topic can be done as:
- A user-driven design project through which a specific digital solution is conceptualized, prototyped and tested.
- A critical study of an existing eHealth system in order to identify the challenges that emerge in practice.
Who is this for?
This type of project appeal to students with a strong interest for healthcare practices among patients and health professionals and with a strong engagement in contributing to the development of concrete solutions that improve care and wellbeing for patients.