Teleconsultation refers to the electronic communication that happens between a clinician and patient for the purpose of diagnostic or therapeutic advice. Teleconsultations are particularly useful to provide healthcare services in situations where face-to-face consultation may not be easy. So far, the teleconsultations sessions are primarily supported by audio and video based communication. Although audio and video based communications are advantageous for teleconsultation, they may not fully support all the diagnostic tasks that are carried out in a face-to-face consultation session. For example, diagnosis of physical injuries may require physical handling through touch, which is not possible over video based communication. To address this, I put forward a novel approach of using tangible interfaces and artifacts to support physical diagnostic tasks in a teleconsultation sessions. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding on how to design such tangible interfaces. The research will be carried out in three phases. In the first phase, I will investigate the experience of users with technology involved in a teleconsultation session through observation studies to gather a deep understanding on existing teleconsultation processes. These insights will inform the design for tangible interfaces to support teleconsultation session. The prototyping will be carried out in second phase. Finally, in the third phase I will field deploy the prototype to gather and understand its implication in teleconsultation sessions. This investigation will guide me towards a first conceptual understanding of the design of tangible interfaces for teleconsultation sessions. Ultimately, my aim is to invoke thinking towards natural (tangible) interfaces in supporting teleconsultations to get closer to the experience of face-to-face consultation.

1. SUPPORTING TELECONSULTATION
THROUGH TANGIBLE INTERFACES
Deepti Aggarwal
Interaction Design Lab
University of Melbourne
Australia

2. Health in Rural areas
12.6 Million fewer health services in rural areas
(National Rural Heath Alliance, 2011)

3. Ageing population
15.3% of Australian population is over 64 years old.
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011)

4. Teleconsultation
Use of electronic information and communication technologies
to provide and support health care when distance separates the
participants.
(Field 1996; van Dyk 2014; Yellowlees 2005)

5. Mediums of Teleconsultation
Three mediums: text, audio and visual

6. Understanding users’ perspective
communicating and dealing with technical issues.

7. Supporting physical interactions
Difficulty in physical diagnosis over a distance
(Field 1996; Pappas & Seale 2009, 2010; van Dyk 2014 )

8. Tangible Interfaces
To capture, shape and convey physical interactions
(Ishii 2008; Hornecker 2010)

9. Thesis statement
How to design tangible interactions to support and enrich
teleconsultation?
Observation
•Gather an
understanding of
teleconsultation
through participant
observation.
Prototyping
• Explore the design
space to develop
research
prototype(s)
Field study
•Validate the
developed
prototype through
qualitative studies
Study 3
Workshop
• Propose a
framework or
theory to help
further explorations
through tangible
interfaces
Study 2
Study 1

10. Study 1: Understanding the user
experiences of teleconsultation session
Passive observations and semi structured interviews

11. Work so far…
March - April • Formulating PhD problem
• Literature Survey
• Collaboration with IEMML and Patricia May-June
• PhD coursework
• DC presentation
• First observation of teleconsultation
July
• PhD coursework
• Observations of MTW training sessions August
• PhD coursework
• Observations of MTW training sessions
• Submitted Ethics application for Study 1
September

12. Future Plans
• PhD coursework
• Observations of MTW training sessions
• Submission to DC @CHI 2015
October
• Start Study 1
• Writing report/paper of MTW intervention
• Writing draft for SRC @CHI 2015
Nov.-Dec.
• Study 1
• Submit to SRC @CHI 2015
• Analysis of collected data
January
• Prepare confirmation report
• Start writing for CSCW 2016 February
• Confirmation
• Writing for CSCW 2016 March

13. Timeline
Study 1
(CSCW 2016)
Study 2
(CHI 2016)
Study 3
(CSCW 2017)
Thesis
2014 2015 2016 2017

14. Teleconsultation: next best thing
Deepti Aggarwal
daggarwal@student.unimelb.edu.au

15. References
Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010, Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2008-09
Demiris, G., Charness, N., Krupinski, E., Ben-Arieh, D., Washington, K., Wu, J., and
Farberow, B. (2010). The Role of Human Factors in Telehealth. Telemedicine and e-
Health, 16(4): 446-453.
Gagnon, Marie-Pierre, Duplantie, J., Fortin, J., and Landry, R. 2006. Implementing
telehealth to support medical practice in rural/remote regions: what are the conditions
for success? In Implementation Science.
Kawulich, B. B. (2005). Participant Observation as a Data Collection Method. Forum
Qualitative Social Research, 6:2, art. 43.
Neuman, W. L. (2006). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches (6 ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
van Dyk, L. 2014. A review of Telehealth Service Implementation Frameworks. In
Environmental Research and Public Health, 11, 1279-1298.
Yellowlees, P. 2005. Successfully developing a telemedicine system. In J. Telemed.
Telecare, 11, 331-336.