Partners Healthcare’s Center of Connected Health www.partners.org/connectedhealth has launched cHealth Compass the first-of-its-kind research tool to help companies, device manufacturers, startups, and investors understand what consumers want from and how they actually use personal health technologies.
cHealth Compass led by Karmal Jethwani, MD, Corporate Manager for Research and Innovation at the Center for Connected Health reports that cHealth Compass will be used to create a research panel of adult healthcare consumers, patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.
The cHealth Compass team includes healthcare providers, research scientists, clinical psychologists, business analysts, developers, and UI/UX experts working to implement connected health solutions across an array of technologies, communication platforms, patient populations, and care settings.
Participants complete monthly surveys to provide longitudinal data on their health to shed insight on how various individual, family and community-level factors influence health behaviors. These can include medical conditions, lifestyle changes, self-management of medical conditions, and technology adoption.
Participants may be invited to focus group discussions, one-on-one interviews, participate in usability testing and feedback, or participate in other data collection activities. In addition to qualitative methods, participants may also be asked to complete questionnaires specific to a research question and topic.
Kamal said, “So often, we see companies develop a device or program in a vacuum without access to the individuals who could benefit from the product. cHealth Compass enables companies, developers, and startups to listen to and learn from the people who will ultimately use their product or service.”
Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, Director, Center for Connected Health, reports, “The Center strongly believes in using patient-centered approaches when developing and deploying connected health products. This means that the end user must be included and involved in the innovation process in order to lead to better adoption and engagement.”
Go to http://connectedhealth.partners.org/research-and-innovation/chealth-compass.aspx for more information.