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. 2024 May 26:10:20552076241256752.
doi: 10.1177/20552076241256752. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.

Development of a telemedicine virtual clinic system for remote, rural, and underserved areas using user-centered design methods

Abby Blocker  1 , Mohammed Ishaaq Datay  2 , Joyce Mwangama  3 , Bessie Malila  1
Affiliations

Development of a telemedicine virtual clinic system for remote, rural, and underserved areas using user-centered design methods

Abby Blocker et al. Digit Health. .

Abstract

Introduction: Virtual clinics are an emerging form of telemedicine which can positively impact healthcare accessibility in remote, rural, and underserved areas. However, a virtual clinic system for these contexts must be designed appropriately. The user-centered design method can be employed to develop an appropriate virtual clinic.

Methods: The development of the virtual clinic used the user-centered design method. First, a situational analysis was conducted to understand the context of public primary healthcare facilities in South Africa. Literature review, observations, and interviews were conducted, which then informed system requirements. A virtual clinic system was then developed and its usability was evaluated with doctors and nurses in a lab setting using healthy participants acting as patients. Doctors and nurses completed system usability scale surveys and provided interview feedback.

Results: The situational analysis revealed 10 key themes which were translated into a problem statement and 10 system requirements. A virtual clinic system was then developed based on these requirements. 5 doctors and 11 nurses were recruited to complete usability testing with the system. The system received an average of 80.6 scores (good to excellent) out of 100 on the system usability scale. Feedback from participants revealed key areas for improvement of the virtual clinic system, as well as opportunities for further implementation.

Conclusion: The developed virtual clinic system demonstrated the application of the user-centered design method to telemedicine technologies for remote, rural, and underserved areas. The positive feedback received from the participants demonstrated the importance of the user-centered design method in developing technologies for enhancing service delivery in health systems. Further work will implement this system in real-world clinical settings.

Keywords: Telemedicine; eHealth; electronic health records; primary healthcare; public healthcare; rural health; telehealth; virtual care; virtual clinics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
How the user-centered design method was followed to develop a virtual clinic system.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Virtual clinic system architecture with five components.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Study design overview of usability testing for nurse and doctor participants.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Themes identified by the situational analysis and their corresponding problem statement with system requirements.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Subsystems of the virtual clinic system and their associated components.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Flowchart depicting the process of evaluating telemedicine kits for use with the virtual clinic.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Chart depicting the number of tasks in each of the Kanban stages during the 15-week software development period.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
User scores of the virtual clinic based on the system usability scale.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Codes developed from the usability feedback using the constant comparative method with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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