An Integrated Patient-Centric Approach for Situated Research on Total Hip Replacement: ESTHER

Homecare is believed to alleviate the care responsibilities that professionals and health institutions are facing due to increasing need for care that our current society demands. Relying on the emergence of technological innovations homecare could empower patients to undertake a more active role in the care practice. Understanding the value of technologies to support patients’ awareness and reflection of their own progress is argued as an important step to design appropriate mechanisms that fit patients’ needs. This chapter discusses an integrated patient-centric approach to design homecare technologies considering patients’ personal experiences and social context as crucial aspects when providing care support. This approach proposes the development of in-situ methods and tools to provide a holistic view of patients care experience through the design of interventions in the context of use. The development of ESTHER (Experience Sampling for Total Hip Replacement) is presented to illustrate the benefits and challenges of conducting in-situ research by supporting the collection of physical activity and emotional states in order for patients to self-monitor and self-reflect on the progress of their recovery. The transition from open and simple interventions to more complex and specific ones opens the discussion of the role of technology to introduce new practices that uncover richer experiences by influencing patient’s care activities via self-reporting and self-reflecting mechanisms. The gradual introduction of technologies to uncover from general to more specific experiences it does not only address research needs, more important it brings an understanding on the acceptance of technologies in patients’ care practices. The consequence is a new generation of research to application tools that bring a closer understanding of patients’ experiences and context to inform the design of supportive homecare technologies that embrace a more active role of patients.