Patient Centred Health-Technologies COMPSCI4101

  • Academic Session: 2023-24
  • School: School of Computing Science
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 1
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes

Short Description

This course will examine digital technology design for healthcare delivery from a patient's perspective. The course discusses the emerging role that digital technology plays in delivering support for mental health and wellbeing, managing long-term chronic health conditions by providing information to patients, and broadening access to medical services. We discuss common challenges for digital innovation in this field including the need to manage sensitive healthcare data in ways that comply with data protection laws, the added burden that gaining ethical approval for research and development work in healthcare settings creates, and the importance of ensuring that designs are accessible to, and accessed by, the widest audience possible. Finally, we look at the human-centred techniques and concepts that play an important role in this area including behaviour change theory, ethnographic studies, healthcare load shifting and participatory design.

Timetable

2 hours per week.

Requirements of Entry

No pre requirements.

Excluded Courses

None

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

Exam worth 80%.

 

Coursework 1 (10%) - A portfolio exercise documenting the design of a digital healthcare technology

 

Coursework 2 (10%) - A report on the implementation of a digital healthcare technology.

Main Assessment In: April/May

Course Aims

The aim of this course is to give students an overview of human-centred digital healthcare design, why it is important but difficult and how to start to address common challenges in it. Students will be introduced to emerging areas of innovation in digital healthcare delivery, the challenges that are faced by designers, and the techniques from human-computer interaction, psychology and social sciences that help to improve address them.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Identify and critically appraise several different areas of innovation in digital healthcare design including the opportunities that are present and the barriers to their deployment.

2. Analyse new digital healthcare innovations and 1) identify potential problem areas (including design, AI implementation, and sensor reliability) then 2) respond with a plan using the techniques they have been taught to start to address those issues.

3. Appraise how inequalities in healthcare delivery are reenforced or mitigated depending on how we design digital healthcare.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.