CHLOE MARTEN
QUANT HUMANISTS
SPRING 2018
25 02 2018
Assignment 4
: Quant Self Service, link to assignment
I have been using a Fitbit for the past few months with interest in monitoring my heart rate. Outside of establishing my resting heart rate, I have yet to make much use of the data and what it means. In an earlier assignment, I reviewed Jakob Eg Larsen’s longitudinal tracking of his heart rate. After measuring his heart rate for over 4 years using different tracking devices, Larsen was able to correlate spikes in his heart rate with major illnesses. From this, I became interested in how heart rate can be used to signify health problems.
Fitness and heart rate trackers are normally marketed to athletic people or people looking to lose weight, helping them get the most out of their workouts. For my service design mini project, I wanted to explore a different audience, one who suffers the most from heart-related ailments: seniors. After doing some research online, I landed on a persona as represented by Jean.
Through Jean’s pain points, I identified a problem which I believe can be solved by recent technology. While wearables provide users the data to monitor their fitness and heart rate, they don’t necessarily do a good job at explaining what it means or what to do. This is likely intentional because the companies that create these devices don’t want to be held liable for providing medical advice. So why not create a service that connects your tracker to your doctor for examination. In the case of seniors, this service should be easy to use and require little effort. From this, I designed Nurse.ai, a chatbot service that monitors your heart rate data via your preferred wearable. It detects any potential issues or inconsistencies, and then automatically connects this data with your doctor to review.
In order for this service to work, it will need to connect with several third parties, including the patient’s healthcare practitioners and various technology platforms to make it a seamless experience.
Just a quick addendum to Joey's feedback:
Pay attention to HIPAA compliance issues, and the comparative analysis of other applications that provide such a service to distinguish your work from theirs. :) Thanks for such a great presentation!