Lessons learned from a yearlong deployment of customizable breast cancer tablet computers

Abstract

Patient-centered technologies demonstrate great promise for users, however they often focus on solitary moments or singular tasks within a broader healthcare journey. We utilized a technology probe to investigate how patients managing long-term diseases use flexible health tools throughout their health journeys. Through a yearlong deployment, we provided 36 cancer patients with a suite of resources on customizable mobile tablets. The majority of our participants did engage with the technology throughout treatment and into survivorship. We analyzed participants' tablet adoption, usage patterns, and customization and describe how each of these influenced technology engagement and changes in use. Finally, we identified a set of lessons researchers can use to guide the design of future patient-centered technologies. Specifically, we discovered that customizable tools reveal insights into patients' goals and values, integrating health and non-health resources encourages participants to return to health resources when needed, and a need exists to expand our definition of health resources.