Personal health records (PHR) have enormous potential to improve both documentation of health information and patient care. The adoption of these systems, however, has been relatively slow. In this work, we used a multi-method approach to evaluate PHR systems. We interviewed potential end users-clinicians and patients-and conducted evaluations with patients and caregivers as well as a heuristic evaluation with HCI experts. In these studies, we focused on three PHR systems: Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, and WorldMedCard. Our results demonstrate that both usability concerns and socio-cultural influences are barriers to PHR adoption and use. In this paper, we present those results as well as reflect on how both PHR designers and developers might address these issues now and throughout the design cycle.

Upon leaving the hospital, parents of high-risk infants experience a variety of challenges in providing care at home. In this work, we present results from a qualitative study to understand the role of social interaction and information-sharing surrounding high-risk infants among both home caregivers and health professionals. These results demonstrate challenges in communication and social support for caregivers of these infants. Based on these results, we present design guidelines for collaborative communication technologies for this population and a prototype system design that demonstrates how these design guidelines might be met in a mobile application. Finally, we discuss how collaborative technologies can serve to improve communication with professionals as well as provide much-needed social support.