Designing Telehealth Rehabilitation Systems for Diverse Stakeholder Needs

The strengthening of community care and the development of co-managed telehealth systems are vital components in addressing growing critical healthcare issues encountered worldwide. The global COVID pandemic highlights the challenges in providing appropriate co-managed home-based care in a systemic and financially viable way at scale. To develop practical and sustainable solutions it is important to understand the individual, institutional, and socio-technical opportunities and barriers potentially encountered when attempting to design and implement telehealth systems as part of a broader social healthcare network. In this thesis, I describe my work assessing the feasibility of deploying telehealth systems within the context of home based physical rehabilitation. I conducted an online survey and in-depth interviews with occupational and physical therapists to determine the issues impacting their current practices and the likelihood that a telehealth rehabilitation system might support or hinder their practice. Findings from this qualitative work highlighted the importance of maintaining the patient/therapist relationship, the need to empower the caregiver, and the potential for telehealth systems to provide quantitative and qualitative proof of care and patient progress. Building on these insights, I designed an interactive tablet application to assist therapists with the efficient and seamless installation and calibration of a telehealth system for stroke rehabilitation in the home. The application was evaluated in two studies with non-expert and expert users. The results from these studies indicate the efficiency of the application resulting from this design approach and the rich potential for integration of the system into clinical practice.