Socio-technical approach to community health: designing and developing a mobile care data application for home-based healthcare, in South Africa

Abstract

The aim of this report is to describe the design and development considerations related to a mobile home-based healthcare application for care givers in a community in the Western Cape, South Africa. In order to do this we first describe current practices of health care givers in the Western Cape in capturing and reporting the data of their patients in practice. Although the overall aims of home-based healthcare are the same everywhere in the world, the context of a particular country is important because it determines how home-based healthcare is implemented in practice. In this instance the design and development of the mobile care data application were undertaken by a local university as part of a funded project to stimulate innovation by using informatics to address real needs in communities.

Description

Keywords

Western Cape, Home-based health care, Mobile application, Design and development, Home-based care

Citation

de la Harpe, R. et al. (2013). Socio-technical approach to community health: designing and developing a mobile care data application for home-based healthcare, in South Africa. Journal of Community Informatics, 9(2)