Guiding Design Principles

Design Goal

• Both the aging population and their caregivers typically want them to remain living independently, in the comfort of their own home for as long as possible.
• Adult children’s’ biggest concern about their aging parents and the main motive behind placing them in a nursing home is their lack of confidence that the are safe and/or keeping up with their own health with living independently.
• This product needs to fulfill a functional, emotional, and psychological end for our target customer, the adult children of this aging population.
  • Functional: Provide both the doctor, and chosen family members with daily information. Information could include, but is not limited to, daily activity, vitals, if medication was taken, if meals were eaten and  bed rest.
  • Emotional: Connect families, especially remote families, on a day-to-day basis. Even by getting simple notifications that their loved ones are doing okay that day, families will feel more connected and involved in each others lives.
  • Psychological: Provide the adult children the piece of mind they need to confidently allow their aging parents to continue aging in place. Assure them that their parents are safe and healthy without disrupting their own daily lives. 

User Perceptions

• Our proposed product is a very important aspect of their emotional well-being, but even more so crucial for the well-being of their aging loved one. Then as the cycle of life continues the product will hopefully remain in their lives and be used as they begin to age themselves.
• In terms of aesthetic attributes of this product, there are a few things we want to avoid. If a wearable product is designed, it should not resemble a “Life Alert”, but instead be a much sleeker, understated device. If a cueing product is designed, to track their medication for instance, aesthetics do not play as propelling of a role. We must keep in mind however that the product must be large enough for the aging population to easily see/use and must not be reliant on listening cues, as many of them suffer from poor hearing.

Problems/ Needs/ Opportunities

• The target user’s main preferred outcome while engaging with this product is for the most part simply a piece of mind.
• Many of them do not have a way to truly know how their aging parents are doing on a day to day basis nor do they have the time to care or check on them as often as they would like.
• This product offers them that piece of mind that their loved ones are safe, and healthy without disrupting or sacrificing anything in their own busy lives.

Functional Attributes:

• The product should be personalizable, in that, it should allow users to customize what it monitors based on the need and/ or reliance on the product.
• The product should also allow users to customize which doctors and which family members information is sent to.
• Compatibility comes into play significantly with this product. The product must be able to successfully synchronize with the target customer’s mobile device and with the designated doctor(s) networks/ devices.

Constraints

• The technological capacity of Unitedhealth Group could become a constraint in the creation of this product.

• The source and amount of funding Unitedhealth Group and Optium is willing to put forth may be a major constraint in thinking about solutions. Unfortunately, we do not yet have an idea of how much is a feasible amount we could work with.
• Willingness to adopt technology and the capacity to use it may become a constraint among the aging population.
• The cost of this product on the user’s side could become a constraint.
• The adoption of this product by doctors could potentially become a limitation.

Defining Health Relationships

We have recognized a cycle that every person goes through throughout their lives, as it pertains to others being involved in their health The relationship starts as a very dependent one, a parent or guardian taking care of a kid, the next stage of independence is perhaps the longest, where a person takes complete control of their health and no other relationships besides there own with their doctor is necessary. The cycle then completes itself however, as that stage of independence leaves and one on dependence replaces it. This stage usually involves adult children stepping in to care for their aging parents and becoming more familiar with their doctors and involved in their health. We recognize that this is a very crucial cycle to understand and address as we move forward. The following are the relationships and patterns that we have recognized corresponding with this guiding principle.

Parent-Child

“I am healthy now, so my family does not need to be in the loop with my doctors but I would want to be able to choose what they could see. I think it would be good for my doctors to have access to earthing but I don’t know if I would want my kids to know everything. I wouldn’t want to burden or worry them.” – Judy Hinton

Child- Parent

“I do think a daily check up is beneficial — not to keep track of me, but to keep track of my parents. It would help me keep tabs on them because they are so elderly and live far away. The number one thing for me would be their physical safety, especially since they live in a two-story house. Right now they’re doing fine, but I could see that being an issue down the road. If I felt like they needed more constant medical attention or if I wanted them to be monitored constantly, then I might start thinking about it” – Denise Brown

Role of Socialization

“I am out and about almost every day, Curt and I walk regularly and like to see the neighbors” – Cameron Campbell

 

 

Teach Me How to Techie

With an aging population as our key demographic, it is crucial to understand and cater to their capacity and willingness to adopt new technology into their lives. That being said we also need to cater to the caregivers and doctors need for technology. The following are the four patterns we found within this guiding principle.

Significance of Technology

“They often need regular and consistent ‘cueing’ in order to accomplish tasks, so it’s important that they have someone to assist them and remind them to do basic things like take their medicine” – Ashley Stump (expert interview)

Stubbornness

“I’m not afraid of technology, but I don’t have the time to learn to use it” – Muriel Gia

Fears of Tech

“I’m kind of scared of technology. I don’t want to try to figure something out on my own because I’m afraid of breaking it” – Denise Brown

Potentials of Technology

“Ideally, I would love an all-in-one dashboard to show vital stats, with a few quick buttons where you could put comments and pictures.” – Kathleen Murphy (expert Interview)

The first innovation opportunity I observed while in Colorado  was a wooden palate hung on the wall in a friend’s garage as a way to store his snowboards.

 

The second innovation opportunity I observed was in our family boat locker at the neighborhood lake. We have our paddle boards propped up on swim noodles to protect the fin while being stored.

The third innovation opportunity I observed while in Colorado was at our mountain house where a slate rock was placed in front of a drainage system to keep raccoons from taking shelter in it.

 

I conducted my second interview over the phone with my mom, Leslie Hinton. Leslie is a 48 year old mother of two college students who lives in Bow Mar, Colorado with her husband. Leslie has been a stay at home mom for the last 21 years but work in multiple non-profit organizations before leaving to raise her kids. The point of this interview was to gain insight on the needs and desires of a health tracking product or platform in a demographic that might be included early adaptors in the near future.

Date: March 3, 2017

Interview Type: Phone Interview

Group Participant: Interviewed alone

 

User Characteristics:

Location: Lives in Bow Mar Colorado

Age: 48

Gender: Female

Marital Status: Married

Occupation: Stay at home mom

 

Memorable Quotes:

• “Yes, I would love to get updates on how he is doing so I could have that piece of mind, assist him in any way and prolong his independent living”.
• “It would be nice to know if he took his medication, his vitals, or if he is up and around and doing things, all of that would be incredible”
• “His house is what is familiar, it’s comfortable. In his house he is surrounded by what he knows and who he knows and I know he is happy there so I would defiantly want to preserve that as long as possible”
• “I am very healthy right now so I don’t see a huge need for it personally but I guess I would be interested in getting a baseline of where I am right now so if something happened I could compare it”

 

Do you currently do anything in your daily life to track your health?

• “I weigh myself but other than that, not really”

Would you be interested in tracking your health? Why or why not”

• “I am very healthy right now so I don’t see a huge need for it personally but I guess I would be interested in getting a baseline of where I am right now so if something happened I could compare it”
• Would be interested in stats like blood pressure, heart rate, blood chemistry

How often do you exercise?

• “I workout with my husband for an hour and a half every morning”
• Switch off every other day between cardio and lifting weights
• Motivation: stay healthy and keep body young

How often do you visit the doctor?

• “Once a year for an annual exam and then I’d say I end up going typically twice a year for some sort of cold or something where I need a prescription”

Would you like your doctor to be more proactively involved in your day-to-day health?

• “No, at this point in my life I think it would be unnecessary, but for someone like my dad I think it would be a lot more beneficial.”
  • Her father is 76, lives in his house alone, relatively good health but suffered a big fall last year.
• “Maybe once a week and once I got older or if something happened it could be monitored more often, but for now I am healthy enough that it seems unnecessary”

How involved are you with your dad’s health right now?

• “I only know what he wants to tell me. I call or visit him multiple time a week just to check in but he doesn’t want to burden any of us so he doesn’t give us too much information”
• At this point doesn’t have a relationship with his doctor and cannot et information because of HIPPA

Would you want to be more involved in his health?

• “Yes, I would love to get updates on how he is doing so I could have that piece of mind, assist him in any way and prolong his independent living”.

What information would you want to know?

• “It would be nice to know if he took his medication, his vitals, or if he is up and around and doing things, all of that would be incredible”

Would he be open to the idea?

• “ He might be a little hesitant, you know its hard to accept that you need those things but I think if it kept him at home, he would do it”

What would prompt you to move him to assisted living?

• “If I felt he was unsafe, wasn’t keeping up with his own health or was suffering Cognitive issues.”
• If he was getting lost driving

Would you want him to stay in his home as long as possible?

• “Yes, his house is what is familiar, it’s comfortable. In his house he is surrounded by what he knows and who he knows and I know he is happy there so I would defiantly want to preserve that as long as possible”
• “ I also think nursing homes are emotionally taxing and I wouldn’t want to have to put him through that”

Takeaways:

This age demographic would be most attracted to a heath or well being tracker as a way to monitor their parents day to day status in a more through and consistent manner rather than for personal use. That being said this demographic could also slowly begin to integrate a product or service into their lives for baseline assessments or possibly monthly or weekly reports.