Nervo Verdezoto

Bio: Nervo Verdezoto is an academic researcher from Cardiff University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Health care & Digital health. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 44 publications receiving 561 citations. Previous affiliations of Nervo Verdezoto include University of Leeds & University of Trento.

Self-Care Technologies in HCI: Trends, Tensions, and Opportunities

Abstract: Many studies show that self-care technologies can support patients with chronic conditions and their carers in understanding the ill body and increasing control of their condition. However, many of these studies have largely privileged a medical perspective and thus overlooked how patients and carers integrate self-care into their daily lives and mediate their conditions through technology. In this review, we focus on how patients and carers use and experience self-care technology through a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lens. We analyse studies of self-care published in key HCI journals and conferences using the Grounded Theory Literature Review (GTLR) method and identify research trends and design tensions. We then draw out opportunities for advancing HCI research in self-care, namely, focusing further on patients' everyday life experience, considering existing collaborations in self-care, and increasing the influence on medical research and practice around self-care technology.

Beyond self-monitoring: understanding non-functional aspects of home-based healthcare technology

Abstract: Monitoring of health parameters in non-clinical settings is one strategy to address the increasingly aging population and age-related disabilities and diseases. However, challenges exist when introducing self-monitoring activities in people's everyday life. An active lifestyle can challenge the appropriation of healthcare technologies and people with comorbidity may have diverse but co-existing monitoring needs. In this paper, we seek to understand home-based health monitoring practices to better design and integrate them into people's everyday life. We perform an analysis of socio-technical complexities in home-based healthcare technologies through three case studies of self-monitoring: 1) pre-eclampsia (i.e. pregnancy poisoning), 2) heart conditions, and 3) preventive care. Through the analysis seven themes emerged (people, resources, places, routines, knowledge, control and motivation) that can facilitate the understanding of home-based healthcare activities. We present three modes of self-monitoring use and provide a set of design recommendations for future Ubicomp designs of home-based healthcare technology.

Beyond the Individual: The Contextual Wheel of Practice as a Research Framework for Sustainable HCI

Abstract: Addressing human impact on the environment by focusing on shared everyday practices, rather than just individual behavior is an approach that shows promise. However, it can be challenging to put this approach into concrete use, especially in teams unfamiliar with the practice orientation. To support the practice approach, we introduce the Contextual Wheel of Practice (COWOP), a framework that can: 1) help researchers and designers to better understand practices, 2) design effective interventions, and 3) facilitate collaboration between team members from different disciplines, who may not be familiar with the practice orientation. We describe how COWOP was developed, and our experiences using COWOP in three different cases. We then position COWOP as part of the "turn to practice" in HCI, and discuss how it can be useful to HCI researchers and be applied in domains beyond sustainability, such as healthcare and privacy.

MediFrame: A Tablet Application to Plan, Inform, Remind and Sustain Older Adults' Medication Intake

Abstract: Healthcare activities in private home settings that are not supervised by a healthcare professional can challenge older adults. To support such unsupervised care activities, an increasingly number of reminders and monitoring systems are designed. However, most of these systems target a specific treatment or a specific condition. In this paper, we discuss experiences from designing the tablet-based application MediFrame. MediFrame is a personal medication management system to support older adults in non-clinical settings such as the home. The paper describes the user-centered design process and the resulting tablet application. We show how MediFrame can be used to support adherence in medical treatments through fieldwork informed use scenarios. Based on early qualitative feedback, we also discuss lessons learned and how designers can support a holistic medication experience for an older adult's everyday life.

Accounting for the Invisible Work of Hospital Orderlies: Designing for Local and Global Coordination

Abstract: The cooperative, invisible non-clinical work of hospital orderlies is often overlooked. It consists foremost of transferring patients between hospital departments. As the overall efficiency of the hospital is highly dependent on the coordination of the work of orderlies, this study investigates the coordination changes in orderlies' work practices in connection to the implementation of a workflow application at the hospital. By applying a mixed methods approach (both qualitative and quantitative studies), this paper calls for attention to the changes in orderlies' coordination activities while moving from a manual and centralized form to a semi-automatic and decentralized approach after the introduction of the workflow application. We highlight a set of cross-boundary (spatial and organizational) information-sharing breakdowns and the challenges of orderlies in maintaining local and global coordination. We also present design recommendations for future design of coordination tools to support orderlies' work practices.

Thinking fast and slow.

Abstract: In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Universal access in the information society

Abstract: ▶ Addresses the accessibility, usability, and, ultimately, acceptability of Information Society Technologies by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and through any media and device. ▶ Focuses on theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, of both technological and non-technological nature. ▶ Features papers that report on theories, methods, tools, empirical results, reviews, case studies, and best-practice examples.

The gold standard: the challenge of evidence-based medicine and standardization in health care

Abstract: What is it that makes a profession a profession and assures its members special status? What do professionals need to be able to claim their turf and establish priority over others who interact wit...