Project Background

The proposed study aims to investigate the effectiveness of technology in encouraging people with long term conditions to take more responsibility and control over their own life.

The project aim will be achieved through four objectives and within six work packages:

  • To investigate how technology can be used to construct tailored plans of interventions to be undertaken by individuals to meet specific needs
  • To identify how relevant signs, symptoms and lifestyle consequences of long term conditions can be effectively monitored, modelled and analysed.
  • To identify how information on signs, symptoms and lifestyle consequences can be fed back to users in a meaningful and useable way in order to support self management.
  • To examine the extent to which behaviour change is promoted through personalised feedback, remote from a health care professional, but delivered within a tailored plan of interventions.

Scenario Videos

Methodology

The World Health Organisation's International Classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF-2) is used to guide our approach towards the research methodology. This model is valuable for considering the treatment goals for each of the long term conditions and how each might be met through technological assistance. The typical requirements of people with each condition in terms of therapeutic goals, self-reporting requirements and measurement domains will be examined. We adopt a user centred approach towards design and testing, building on our earlier SMART 1 project. There will be a series of participatory design meetings involving designers, programmers and end users and also a range of user evaluations in the context-of-use throughout the project.

Research Programme

The project is described in a series of inter-related work packages. These are:

  • Evidence and Knowledge Review
  • User Engagement and User-centred Design
  • Integration of Personalised Self Management System
  • Construction of Therapy Content
  • Decision Support
  • Evaluation of Behaviour Changes
  • Dissemination

Each work package will be coordinated by a designated Investigator who will ensure that the work is undertaken appropriately and on time. Each coordinator will act as the primary contact for the project lead (Professor Gail Mountain) and technical lead (Professor Mark Hawley).