Abstract

Background: Healthcare, in general, becomes more and more digital which changes the practice of how the treatment of patients occurs. This study is a qualitative innovation study of a digital communication platform named SCAUT. Pacemaker patients are everyday living with anxiety and concerns about their pacemaker and health. Vital Beats is a company, that uses user-centered design, to create the SCAUT platform that mediates between the clinicians at the pacemaker clinic and the pacemaker patients. This project investigates the innovation process of the SCAUT platform by making participatory design and workshops, in collaboration with patients and clinicians. This might adjust the platform to the patients’ and clinicians’ needs and how the SCAUT platform comes together when involving both patients and clinicians in the design process.

Theory: The theoretical framework is conducted by using key concepts from Actor-network theory and Critical theory of technology, to illuminate the innovation process and as a critical reflection.

Methods: The methodological framework was carried out from February 2020 to May 2020, in collaboration with the company Vital Beats and the pacemaker clinic at Rigshospitalet. This project is practicing participatory design to innovate the technological platform SCAUT. Participatory design, in this case, exists of mockup-illustrations of the SCAUT mobile application. The mockups are executed as individual workshops together with five pacemaker patients by using skype. Personas are carried out as a user-centered design method, in order to create a personalized platform, and by that aim to reach a broad range of pacemaker patients. Semi-structured interviews are performed, by having a spokesperson from the pacemaker clinic at Rigshospitalet (clinician) and a spokesperson from Vital Beats (business developer and anthropologist). The two interviews are conducted before and after the workshops with pacemaker patients.



Results: The results exist of three possible personas profiles, that incorporate a broad range of pacemaker patients, furthermore the executed mockups resulted in three questionnaires, that have been the core of the SCAUT platform prototypes, which are carried out together with pacemaker patients.