UC Irvine

Health informatics is the multidisciplinary field of study that uses computing and information technology (IT) to collect, store, interpret, and deliver health information to doctors, patients, and consumers. Health informatics applications have historically been limited by the computing and IT capabilities of the time, whether it be equipment cost, size, processing abilities or general availability. However, in the past two decades, personal computers and peripheral equipment overcame these hurdles enabling an abundant amount of Electronic Healthcare (eHealth) applications, such as patient/doctor communication via telecommunication, electronic health record management, emergency information delivery, and medical data transmission. Furthermore, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are becoming a dominant computing source in the consumer market with over 1 billion smartphone and tablet sales in 2013 alone. Because of their prevalence, inexpensive costs, processing power, and small form factor, mobile devices are also becoming primary computing devices in Health Informatics, satisfying Mobile Healthcare (mHealth) applications. This thesis discusses 4 mHealth applications and the corresponding tablet-apps developed to handle the health information. Specifically, each tablet-app has a particular focus in either the collection, interpretation, or delivery of health information. The applications of the 4 mHealth apps are: surveying youth in Swaziland, Africa to research the connections between relationship-oriented, psychological development and impoverished environments, pain classification for pain treatment of veterans with spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/D), pressure ulcer prevention training for occupational therapists working with veterans with SCI/D, and self-health reporting and information delivery for senior citizens prescribed to anticoagulant medications. These apps aim to yield more extensive surveys and research studies, more standard diagnosis suggestions, less prevalence of pressure ulcers, and healthier senior citizens.