Geriatric Helper: An mHealth Application to Support Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment

Abstract

The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a multidisciplinary diagnosis approach that considers several dimensions of fragility in older adults to develop an individualized plan to improve their overall health. Despite the evidence of its positive impact, CGA is still applied by a reduced number of professionals in geriatric care in many countries, mostly using a paper-based approach. In this context, we collaborate with clinicians to bring CGA to the attention of more healthcare professionals and to enable its easier application in clinical settings by proposing a mobile application, Geriatric Helper, to act as a pocket guide that is easy to update remotely with up-to-date information, and that acts as a tool for conducting CGA. This approach reduces the time spent on retrieving the scales documentation, the overhead of calculating the results, and works as a source of information for non-specialists. Geriatric Helper is a tool for the health professionals developed considering an iterative, User-Centred Design approach, with extensive contributions from a broad set of users including domain experts, resulting in a highly usable and accepted system. Geriatric Helper is currently being tested in Portuguese healthcare units allowing for any clinician to apply the otherwise experts-limited geriatric assessment.

Keywords: comprehensive geriatric assessment; mHealth; user centred design.

Figure 1

Several screen captures of Geriatric Helper’s first prototype: (a) menu depicting the different evaluation areas (affective, cognitive, functional, nutritional and social); (b) current status for ongoing session, with the social status assessment already performed (outcome: mild social incapacity); and (c) overall description of CGA purpose and components, deemed an issue to correct, during the heuristic evaluation, due to the amount and size of the text.

Figure 2

Screens for the second prototype of Geriatric Helper: (a) guides available regarding the different assessment dimensions (visible: cognitive, functional, nutritional and social); (b) clinical criteria to observe when prescribing for elderly patients.

Figure 3

Results obtained for the evaluation of the second prototype of Geriatric Helper: (a) the System Usability Scale Scores (SUS); and (b) task completion ratio.

Figure 4

Screens for the (a) tutorial home screen, providing a short explanation about CGA, (b) help menu, 0 and (c) guided tour features added to the fourth prototype of Geriatric Helper.

Figure 5

Geriatric Helper for iOS: (a) start screen; (b) menu of the different dimensions that can be assessed; (c) reviewing the outcomes of the ongoing assessment session; (d) items to be assessed in a scale.