A Proposal to Research about Home Health Care Systems for Chronic Disease Management based on Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) Principles

Introduction
The time patients spend in clinical institutions has become significantly shorter. There was a shift from hospitalization to home health care for chronic diseases management in the U.S. einmid-1980s due to the employment growth (Carayon, 2011, p.743). According to the 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment growth in hospitals is expected to be 10% while employment in smaller home health services is expected to grow at a rate of 46% (cited inCarayon, 2011, p.743). At the same time, chronic diseases, which can only be controlled but not cured at current level of medical research, are making greatly negative impacts on the society. About half of the adults in the U.S. suffer from at least one chronic illness such asdiabetes, asthma and a range of disabling neurological conditions (Haddad &Chetty, 2012, p. 285), and about 70% of the deaths in the U.S. can be account of chronic diseases (CDC, 2012).Because of the shortage medical staff at hospitals and clinics, and the long term care requirement of chronic disease patients, home health care is regardedas the best option to manage patients’ health.

A home healthcare system typically consists of patients, medical contact centers and medical staff. Medical Contact Centers (MCCs) perform as the communication link between medical staff and patients with chronic diseases where patients upload their medical history, scheduled measurements. The MCCs may give instantaneous response by the system’s recommendations or pass on to the medical staff who can interpret the imported information and decide on what kind of actions to take on in order to resolve patients’ problems (Maglaveras, Chouvarda, &Koutkias, 2005, p.354-355)

Home healthcare systems