MPAS - A mobile patient assistance system for cancer-stricken adolescents

Patients with life-threatening chronic diseases such as cancer have to deal with many dependencies and obligations. Very often they are torn out of their social environment and become isolated because of changing therapy cycles; they migrate between several physicians and treatment locations. This causes significant social and economic damages. We present an ethnographically grounded design and development of a mobile system for patients (Mobile Patient Assistant) supporting their self-management, coordination and communication during treatment and aftercare. The system is based on a 2,5G mobile device and is designed to improve the patients' compliance, to reduce coordination tasks (such as appointments and medication plans) and to enhance their social interaction with physicians and peers in simmilar situations. The background for the design of the MP A is an 18- month field experiment conducted together with the cancer station of the University Children's Hospital Heidelberg. The prototype will be evaluated in a real- world setting in the next months to come. By the time of the workshop we hope to be able to present more detailled empirical results from the field evaluation.