MyHealthCoach
- 1. Information-rich mobile extension of healthfinder.gov Takes myhealthfinder personalization to a new level Educates, identifies actions to take, and helps motivate and manage wellness activities BrowerGroup Partners
- 2. Usability & Design Goals Provide a mobile version of healthfinder.gov to attract users and promote wellness. Extensive use of symbols and images to simplify screens and navigation while providing accessibility prompts. Draw the user >>in<< with a challenge/quiz which promotes health literacy. myhealthfinder functionality for personalized preventive services, wellness information, and to-do/action lists for you and your family members. Full functionality available in English and Spanish.
- 3. How Does MyHealthCoach Work? MyHealthCoach is designed to be personal. The wellness questionnaire assesses a persons wellness - that is, are they taking the appropriate actions to stay healthy. These questions are derived from healthfinders content and responses to these questions identify gaps where follow-up is suggested and logged to personalized follow-up checklists. At various points within the process, the user can add calendar reminders and post activities and facts to facebook and Twitter to share recommendations of interest or plans to take action. MyHealthCoach is designed to reach a broad population of users, especially those who may not normally seek out guidance on how to stay healthy. A new user is challenged with a brief wellness quiz based on healthfinder data. This quiz gives immediate feedback on responses and provides statistics on previous user answers. MyHealthCoach is designed to educate. Within the quiz, wrong answers are corrected and explained. Throughout the quiz and questionnaire, links are provided to easily view topic-specific wellness recommendations and actions to take. MyHealthCoach is designed to motivate and facilitate action. The assessment makes things personal by targeting specific areas needing attention and it links those areas to specific actions to take. As the wellness gaps are identified, the app builds a personalized checklist so that the user can, for example, easily reference all the questions to ask their physician on their next visit.
- 4. The App MyHealthCoach is available as a mobile web site supporting all major mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry etc.). o Based on jQuery Mobile, a touch-optimized web framework for smartphones and tablets. o Supports embedded iFrame deployment. o Does not require separate source code for each platform (easier to maintain) o Native Android and iPhone apps available using WebView. The healthfinder.gov content has been extracted and populated into an app-specific database. o Database was built from the Healthfinder.gov API XML o Content was extracted for both English and Spanish o Database maintenance plan has been established and extraction programs have been created to provide for periodic data refresh Section 508 Accessibility Compliance o 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications. o Ran through 508 testing using WAVE - Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool Remediated all errors o Tested using iPhone VoiceOver Minor modifications made to enable app navigation by voice prompts
- 5. Testers engaged 28 Feedback items received 197 Issues addressed 37 Co-Design with End User Suggestions completed 44 36 Health Tech Hatch suggestions received from 8 different testers Phase 2 testing resulted in over 150 suggestions / issues from 20+ testers o Fixed all significant issues (37) and implemented 26 suggestions Most impactful comments all implemented: o Some of the screen shots have too many words o Save and retrieve for return visits, even on different devices o Introduction for new user identifying source of data o Provide a to-do list of health actions to be taken for user and users family members o Create specific list of actions for doctor follow-up o Integrate the to-do list with the phone's calendar to provide reminders Immediate futures o Access to most recent healthfinder.gov news articles o Add 'track your health where you can enter and graph your cholesterol, weight, blood sugars, blood pressures over time o Sort search results by relevance (keyword frequency, keyword closeness)
- 6. Strengths and Advantages MyHealthCoach is... ... an easy-to-use application written in plain language geared towards those with limited health literacy. ... a source of healthfinder.gov information, essentially a personalized mobile extension of Healthfinder content and branding. ... engaging, leveraging graphics and a simple design to communicate with the less web- savvy user. ... the result of co-design, incorporating end-user feedback. ... innovative, challenging and educating users in the interest-capturing form of a health quiz. ... independently tested and verified by end-users. ... section 508 compliant, navigable via voice prompts. ... focused on improving the health of a broad set of people through dissemination and personalization of health and wellness information.