Co-Creating Reassurance Journey Maps to Foster Engagement in Remote Patient Monitoring for Post-Operative Cancer Care

Research Background and Issues

• Problem or Challenge: Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) during the postoperative cancer recovery period faces the challenge of low patient engagement, particularly in the first 30 days post-discharge (POPD). Patients often experience anxiety and uncertainty due to a lack of "reassurance," which negatively impacts their adherence to and engagement with RPM technologies.
• Significance: The first 30 days post-discharge are a critical recovery period for cancer patients, during which high recurrence and readmission rates exacerbate both physical and psychological stress. If RPM systems can provide more effective emotional support, they can contribute to better patient recovery outcomes and more efficient allocation of medical resources.
• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  • Current RPM technologies primarily focus on clinical data monitoring but lack attention to patients' emotional and psychological needs, limiting engagement and effectiveness.
  • While existing technologies have explored how psychological comfort can enhance health interventions, these methods often lack a comprehensive approach centered on "reassurance."

Solution

• Method or Solution:
  • A co-design approach called the "Reassurance Journey Map" was proposed, integrating patients' emotional needs with technological design, and developing RPM design principles and specific recommendations for postoperative recovery.
• Innovations:
  • Conceptualized "reassurance" as a dynamic state rather than a singular emotion, systematically capturing the triggers, behaviors, and resolution pathways for patients seeking reassurance.
  • Incorporated real-life patient experiences and feedback to propose granular design recommendations, such as voice recording functionality, personalized goal-setting, and flexible interaction modes.
• Implementation Steps:
  1. Preparatory Research: Conducted online surveys to collect postoperative cancer patients' behavioral preferences for seeking reassurance, and established patient personas and case scenarios based on real-world conditions.
  2. Main Study: Facilitated Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) workshops to co-create the "Reassurance Journey Map," exploring patients' triggers and emotional support-seeking behaviors during the recovery phase.
  3. Design Recommendations Generation: Developed a series of RPM system design recommendations focused on emotional support based on the co-created journey map.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:
  • Developed the "Reassurance Journey Map," capturing key triggers, emotional state transitions, and specific actions for seeking reassurance during the postoperative recovery period.
  • Proposed six design recommendations:
    1. Voice Recording: Provide functionality for patients to record medical interactions for easier recall of postoperative information.
    2. Medical Terminology Glossary: Offer accessible and reliable medical vocabulary for patient reference.
    3. Personalized Goal Setting: Enable collaboration between patients and medical teams to establish realistic recovery goals.
    4. Customizable Interface: Allow patients to prioritize information display based on their individual needs.
    5. Flexible Interaction Modes: Reduce the burden of technological interaction during periods of low energy.
    6. Comprehensive Communication Platform: Integrate communication channels among healthcare providers, patient support groups, and family members.
• Advantages:
  • Enhanced the appeal of RPM technologies for postoperative cancer patients through precise emotional needs capture and personalized design.
  • Features such as the glossary and voice recording functionality effectively addressed issues of information recall and comprehension post-discharge.
  • The co-design approach fostered a stronger sense of engagement and belonging among patients.
• Experimental and Evaluation Results:
  • Feedback from patient groups indicated that the proposed design recommendations improved usability and effectiveness while significantly reducing anxiety.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • Limitations: Small sample size and focus on the UK healthcare system, which may limit applicability to other regions or systems. The co-design approach is in its early stages and has not undergone multiple iterations of validation.
  • Future Directions:
    1. Expand patient participation samples to increase representation across different healthcare systems.
    2. Conduct long-term testing of the design recommendations to evaluate their impact on patient recovery outcomes.
    3. Develop quantitative metrics for assessing "reassurance" to standardize the evaluation of design improvements.

Conclusion

Through the co-creation of the "Reassurance Journey Map," this study deeply explored the emotional and technological experiences of cancer patients in RPM programs and proposed innovative design recommendations to enhance reassurance. The findings advance the emotional and human-centered development of human-computer interaction systems in medical contexts and provide valuable reference points for future RPM system design.