Usability Evaluation of a Portable Health Information Kiosk Using a SMAARTTM Intervention Framework

Empirical literature has shown that interventions to address social determinants of health are limited owing to poor integration of social and clinical data. The objective of this study was to describe a Sustainable, Multisector, Accessible, Affordable, Reimbursable, and Tailored framework (SMAARTTM) which was utilized to design and pilot test portable health information kiosk that can facilitate the integration of social determinants of health data with clinical data to enhance population health outcomes in global settings. The SMAART TM framework was designed using a combined approach of Data, Information Knowledge, Human Centered approach and behavioral humanistic and learning theories, and was applied to develop and evaluate an interactive, bi-lingual computer enabled portable health information kiosk. A convenience sample (recruitment based on accessibility to the researcher) of 149 individuals aged 18 years and above living in urban slum settings of India were enrolled in the year 2013. Subjective and objective data gathering included socio-demographics, clinical history, health behaviors and knowledge, attitude and practices. Weight and blood pressure levels were measured using physiological sensors. Usability assessment of the health information kiosk was also conducted. Results showed an increased burden of chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors and related knowledge, and lack of healthy lifestyle practices among urban slum individuals. Our study showed that the technology enabled SMAART TM framework can be utilized to develop an individual risk profile for better disease prevention, monitoring and management of chronic NCDs.