JMIR Human Factors

Sex workers face an epidemic of violence in the United States. However, violence against sex workers (VASW) in the United States is underreported. Sex workers hesitate to report to police because they are frequently punished; therefore an alternative for reporting is needed.

As Japan is the world’s fastest-aging society with a declining population, it is challenging to secure human resources for care providers. Therefore, the Japanese government is promoting digital transformation and the use of nursing care equipment, including non-wearable devices that monitor heart and respiratory rates. However, the feasibility of monitoring heart and respiratory rates with non-wearable devices and the consistency of the rates measured have not been reported.

As a reaction to the global demographic increase in older adults (aged 60+ years), policy makers call for initiatives to enable healthy aging. This includes a focus on person-centered care and access to long-term care for older adults, such as developing different services and digital health technologies. This can enable patients to engage in their health and reduce the burden on the health care systems and health care professionals. The European Union project Smart Inclusive Living Environments (SMILE) focuses on well-being and aging in place using new digital health technologies. The novelty of the SMILE project is the use of a cocreational approach focused on the needs and preferences of older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in technology development, to enhance access, adaptation, and usability and to reduce stigma.

Virtual Reality (VR) group activities can be one intervention against inactivity and lack of meaningful activities in nursing homes. The acceptance of VR among older adults has been explored from different perspectives. However, research on the impact of older adults´ individual characteristics on the acceptance of VR group activity in nursing home is necessary.

Maternal and child health outcomes are positively influenced by early intervention, and digital health (DH) tools provide the potential for a low-cost and scalable solution such as informational platforms or digital tracking tools. Despite the wide availability of DH tools out there for women from before to after pregnancy, user engagement remains low.

Industrywide, primary care nurses’ work is increasing in complexity and team orientation. Mobile health information technologies (HITs) designed to aid nurses with indirect care tasks, including charting, have had mixed success. Failed introductions of HIT may be explained by insufficient integration into nurses’ work processes, owing to an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the underlying work systems. Despite this need for context, published evidence has focused more on inpatient settings than on primary care.

Telemedicine and mobile health (mHealth) apps have emerged as powerful tools in healthcare, offering convenient access to services and empowering individuals in managing their health. Among populations with chronic and progressive disease as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), mHealth apps hold promise for enhancing self-management and care. To be employed in clinical practice, validity and usability of mHealth tools should be tested. The most commonly used method for assessing the usability of electronic technologies are questionnaires.

Clinical trials are essential for medical research and medical progress. Nevertheless, trials often fail to reach their recruitment goals. Patient recruitment systems aim to support clinical trials by providing an automated search for eligible patients in the databases of health care institutions like university hospitals. To integrate patient recruitment systems into existing workflows, previous works have assessed user requirements for these tools. In this study, we tested patient recruitment systems KAS+ and recruIT as part of the MIRACUM (Medical Informatics in Research and Care in University Medicine) project.

Previous studies have evaluated the accuracy of the diagnostics of electronic symptom checkers (ESCs) and triage using clinical case vignettes. National Omaolo digital services (Omaolo) in Finland consist of an ESC for various symptoms. Omaolo is a medical device with a Conformité Européenne marking (risk class: IIa), based on Duodecim Clinical Decision Support, EBMEDS.

Electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROMs) are standardized digital instruments integrated into clinical care to collect subjective data regarding patients’ health-related quality of life, functional status, and symptoms. In documenting patient-reported progress, ePROMs can guide treatment decisions and encourage measurement-based care practices. Voxe is a pediatric and user-centered ePROM platform for patients with chronic health conditions.

The use of mobile tools in nursing care is indispensable. Given the importance of nurses’ acceptance of these tools in delivering effective care, this issue requires greater attention.

Digitization is vital for data management, especially in health care. However, problems still hinder health care stakeholders in their daily work while collecting, processing, and providing health data or information. Data are missing, incorrect, cannot be collected, or information is inadequately presented. These problems can be seen as data or information problems. A proven way to elicit requirements for (software) systems is by using creative frameworks (eg, user-centered design, design thinking, lean UX [user experience], or service design) or creative methods (eg, mind mapping, storyboarding, 6 thinking hats, or interaction room). However, to what extent they are used to solve data or information-related problems in health care is unclear.