The MobileHCI 2016 Conference took place in Florence from 6th to 9th September 2016 to discuss about human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services, broadly known as mHealth. myAirCoach EU funded project, in which EFA is involved to develop a connected inhaler that could help patients be on top of their asthma, organised a workshop during the conference entitled Mobile Healthcare for the Self-Management of Chronic Diseases and the Empowerment of Patients.
The first day was dedicated to workshop sessions to create a dynamic and interactive atmosphere for the discussion of novel mHealth approaches for the empowerment of chronic patients. The workshop was divided in three sessions, which was concluded with discussion were participants could comment and give suggestions for the specific research area. Moreover, they could discuss about opportunities and challenges in the design of mobile applications in the modern technological environment and for the proper management of chronic conditions within the healthcare system and from the patients themselves.
The fist Paper Session, focused on “Mental disorders in the Modern mHealth environment”, was composed by three speeches. Through them, the authors explained the implication of designing technology-based solutions on people with mental disorders, like bipolar disorder (“MoodRhythm”) and Intellectual and Development Disabilities (IDD) (“Travel and Communication Assistant”). Moreover, the last part of this session was dedicated to explain how technological solution could get better the quality of life of patients with these diseases.
The implication of technology solutions on different diseases was the theme of the second Paper Session, too. It was dedicated to “Mobile applications for the management of chronic conditions”.
Every speeches explained a different way in which mobile technologies could analyze the patient’s daily behaviors in order to get better the patients’ life, like “fingerprints” technique, use of wearable sensors or biochips (“mychron”), detectors to provide biometric data, model-based reasoning systems and personalized human computer interaction in order to promote physical activity.
Finally, the last paper session was focused on user centered design and personalization of mHealth solutions targeting chronic conditions. The specific themes were the investigation of sociotechnical design of mHealth applications on chronical diseases (“MANTRA Project design”), the analysis of better technology possibilities in order to indicate better solutions for people living with COPD, development of flexible applications able to match the many possible user needs (“AAL Personalisation Rule Editor”) and provide high quality user experience and the promotion of health and wellness using a holistic approach in order to maintain the overall wellbeing of the nation (“COACHME”).
After the workshop, during the next two days, some partners meetings took place in order to discuss about MyAircoach project and its following developments.