Feedback from Medical Field Experts Survey

The Objectives. During the time this survey was conducted, complete working proto- types of the tools in the Mobia Framework were already available, thus the participants

were able to see how the tools work. This survey was done together with interviews with some of the participants. The interviews will be discussed further in section 2.3.2.

The following are the objectives of the survey:

• To collect feedback from experts in the medical field with regards to the whole idea

of the Mobia Framework and its applicability in the medical domain.

• To find out what is still lacking with the Mobia Framework particularly the Mobia

Modeler5 _{tool, for the purpose of improving the current design and functionality.}

The Participants. There were five participants in the survey, four of which were doctors and nurses, all members of the National Telehealth Center (NThC) of the University of the Philippines6_{, while one is an Assistant Professor from the University of the Philippines,}

College of Public Health whose primary research interest is in the area of Tropical Medicine. The Process. The first part of the survey involved the collection of personal background information such as profession, field of expertise, and their roles and responsibilities in their respective organizations.

The second part of the survey consisted of questions with regards to the general idea of having a framework such as theMobia Framework for end-user development of applications for mHealth. The participants were also asked to try the Mobia Modeler available online before answering the questions.

Results and Recommendations. The first three questions in the questionnaire try to capture the initial impression on the concept of the Mobia Modeler, its usefulness for experts in the medical field, and what they think are realistic situations in their domain that makes use of such tool. The following points summarize the responses from the participants and validated the importance of having a tool such as theMobia Modeler, and a framework that supports it.

• As a communication tool with developers. A tool such as the Mobia Mod-

eler and its underlying framework which allows automatic code generation allows health professionals to easily express their ideas to the developers. It will give them a tool that they can use to demonstrate how they think the mobile application should work at the interface level. Most of the time, solutions created by the developers do

5 _{The focus is on getting feedback with regards to the design of theMobia Modeler from [Taf09] since}

it is the one that the target users interact with.

6 _{The National Telehealth Center (NThC) of the University of the Philippines Manila was established}

in June 1998 and"was given mandate to enhance access to health care through information and communi- cations technology (http://www.telehealth.ph/)". Three interrelated programs are managed by the NThC particularly: electronic health records program, eLearning program, and telemedicine program.

not match the actual workflow from these health providers, and thus cause delay in development and even resistance in using the system.

• As a communication tool with patients. Having a tool such as the Mobia

Modeler that can be used to create mobile applications in real-time in front of the patient would be an essential communication tool.

• As a means of educating health professionals. Aside from helping health professionals communicate their ideas in a visual format, it can help them appreciate the efforts placed by developers in creating such systems. Since current graduates in the field of medicine are already computer savvy, it is easier for them to use tools such as theMobia Modeler.

Aside from the positive comments, there were also responses that express some concerns on how some people in the medical field would be willing to adopt such technology:

" ... despite its ease of use, it would still be a select few who would use this. At the end of the day, most doctors and nurses can’t be bothered. This would still fall under the domain of medical and public health informatics, specialists and perhaps researchers. " - Prof. John Solon, UP College of Public Health

" ... it depends on how technology savvy the end-users are. If the doctors are willing to allocate some of their time in learning the technology, then I suppose it would not be a problem. " - Alexandra Belle S. Bernal, Registered Nurse, National Telehealth Center

However, in general, encouragement on the continued development of theMobia Frame- work was expressed since it would be very useful if fully completed.

Aside from general feedback, the respondents were also asked if the current version of the

Mobia Modeler was able to capture which components are needed by medical professionals in order to create health monitoring applications for their patients. The following points summarize the responses from the medical experts during the interview and the survey.

• Very high-level representation of components. The current components avail-

able in theMobia Modeler are very high level which allows them to easily add complex controls (e.g. voice recorder, note taker) in the model. However, the more basic con- trols such as text boxes and text areas are unavailable. The expectations from the respondents was that the Mobia Modeler would provide them with an interface that would allow them to customize and adjust the look and feel of the forms.

• Should use domain-specific terminologies. There are inconsistencies between the terminologies used in the Mobia Modeler and the actual terminologies used in the medical field. One example they pointed out was instead of using the word

problems during the configuration wizard in order to describe the health issues, it would be better to use termdomain and would include options such asmaternal care

orchildcare.

• Suggestions for additional target users. Another additional user for theMobia

Modeler suggested was the midwife7_.

• Data Representation in the Modeler. One question asked was the data model8

used for persistence for the mobile applications generated by theMobia Modeler. One suggestion to store data specifically in this domain is by using OpenMRS format9

which is an open-source platform for storing electronic medical records.

• Design Improvements. One particular feature that they were looking for was

the undo functionality. The X button on the component was not very visible and obvious for deletion. Another feature they were looking for were form controls (e.g. text boxes, text areas) that would allow them to design how the forms would look like in the mobile application they would be modeling10_.

2.3 Collection and Validation of Ideas through Inter-