Development of Mobile Application for Long-term and Palliative Patient care

Abstract

Background: Patients who need Long-term care (LTC) or palliative care (PC) are
often in high-dependency states. Caregivers play an important role and have a very close relationship with the patient. Communication between caregivers and healthcare personnel can enhance quality of patient care. Communication by phone calls or social media still have some limitations. Mobile applications are another communication channel since mobile devices are readily available, have more computing power and are becoming less costly.
Objective: To develop a mobile application for caregivers providing care for long-term care and palliative care patients.
Material and Methods: User groups were analyzed to identify technical and functional
requirements. The mobile application was developed for iOS and Android platforms. Face validity and usability were evaluated in 10 healthcare staffs and 10 caregivers.
Results: Features for caregivers include reporting of patient status to healthcare staffs, emergency call, healthcare knowledge, chat and notification. Features for healthcare staffs include checking the patient’s status, responding to emergency calls, chat, notification and data summary. Feedback showed that 78.2% of caregivers and 76.7% of caregivers rated the application as very good or good.
Conclusion: Mobile application development for mobile devices provides a means for caregivers to care for long-term and palliative care patients.