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eHealth: Combining Psychology, Technology, and Health

How can technology make you healthy? Learn about the design, application, implementation and evaluation of eHealth.

28,012 enrolled on this course

A smart watch and iPhone running health apps
  • Duration

    6 weeks
  • Weekly study

    3 hours

eHealth refers to the use of technologies to improve well-being, health, and healthcare. It is an umbrella term that captures concepts about the health context, technology, and people.

In this free online course, we will provide you with insight into the domain of eHealth, describe methods to develop eHealth, and explain theories that enable behaviour change and facilitate implementation. You will also understand how eHealth technologies are developed and used in practice, by means of a variety of case studies, assignments and examples.

All videos have subtitles available in Portuguese (Brazil) and Russian.

This course pays attention to the perspectives of the eHealth developers, patients, healthcare professionals and healthy people who want to improve or maintain their health and wellbeing. These perspectives are applied to the three main topics of this course:

  • During Weeks 1 and 2, we will introduce eHealth and show you how eHealth technologies are used to enable or improve self-care and prevention, supportive care, and societal health.
  • Weeks 3 and 4 will focus on design. You will learn how to design eHealth that fits the user and the context, and is able to seduce or support people into changing their behaviour.
  • In Weeks 5 and 6, we focus on the diffusion and evaluation of eHealth technologies within the intended context, and among users and other relevant stakeholders.

After finishing this course, you will have new knowledge about eHealth, acquired relevant eHealth skills, and gained insight into the use of eHealth in practice.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 10 seconds How can technology make you healthy? eHealth combines psychology, technology, and health care in order to improve our health and well being. During our six week open online course, you’ll learn what the possibilities of eHealth are, how to develop eHealth technologies, and how to make sure these will actually be used and are effective. The first two weeks of this course show the possibilities of eHealth. For example, eHealth can be used during daily life to improve health and well being. It’s also used in a health care setting. For instance, to assist nurses in doing their job. In weeks three and four, we’ll explain how to design eHealth technologies that take the perspective of the user and the context into account.

Skip to 0 minutes and 56 seconds You’ll acquire the skills to create a lo-fi prototype and conduct a usability test with prospective users. The fifth and sixth week of this course will make you think about ensuring that eHealth technology will actually be used in practice. We will also explain how to investigate whether eHealth is effective. This course combines theory with practice. You’ll gain new knowledge on eHealth and also acquire practical skills by means of cases. To provide you with insight, we’ll show lots of interesting and innovative real life examples. The motto of the University of Twente is high tech, human touch. We believe this is the way to create effective eHealth technologies, combining the human, health care, and technological perspective.

Skip to 1 minute and 45 seconds I hope that you are as enthusiastic as I am about all the new and exciting possibilities that eHealth offers. I invite you to join this course.

Syllabus

  • Week 1

    What is eHealth?

    • Welcome to the course!

      Get acquainted with your educators, this course, the domain of eHealth, and the main topics of this first week.

    • What is eHealth?

      Learn more about what eHealth is and what the main reasons for its existence are.

    • What can eHealth look like?

      Acquire more knowledge on eHealth by means of an explanation of three domains of eHealth, and examples provided by us and other learners.

    • What are benefits and barriers of eHealth?

      Gain more insight into possible benefits and barriers that can accompany eHealth technologies.

    • What is a holistic approach?

      Discover what a holistic approach towards eHealth development is, why it is important, and what holistic development can look like in practice.

    • Wrapping up Week 1

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

  • Week 2

    How can we combine technology and healthcare?

    • Welcome to Week 2

      Find out more about what this week is all about. You will be challenged to come up with original eHealth solutions to cases from practice.

    • Self-care and prevention

      Get to know more about the domain of self-care and prevention by means of examples and a case about depression.

    • Supportive care

      Learn more about supportive care by means of examples and a case about the care for patients with diabetes.

    • Societal health

      Gain more insight into societal health by means of examples and a case about the incorrect prescription of antibiotics by healthcare professionals working in a hospital.

    • Wrapping up Week 2

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

  • Week 3

    How can we create appealing designs?

    • Welcome to Week 3

      Find out more about what you will learn in this week, which is all about the design process.

    • Why is the context important?

      Learn about the relevance of and relationship between the context, values and requirements.

    • Why and how do we prototype?

      Get the hang of lo-fi prototyping and create your own prototype.

    • How can we test usability?

      Discover why usability testing with users and experts is essential and learn how to conduct usability tests.

    • Wrapping up Week 3

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

  • Week 4

    How can we change behaviour with technology?

    • Welcome to Week 4

      Find out more about what we will discuss this week, which is all about changing behaviour to improve health and wellbeing.

    • How can we change behaviour?

      Discover how we can influence behaviour according to theories from psychology and gain insight in how this can be done in practice.

    • What is persuasive technology?

      Acquire knowledge on persuasive eHealth technology and its relation to health and wellbeing.

    • How can we create persuasive technology?

      Learn how to create technologies that entail persuasive elements by means of theory on persuasive design.

    • Wrapping up Week 4

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

  • Week 5

    How can we help people and organizations use eHealth?

    • Welcome to Week 5

      Find out more about what we will discuss this week, which is all about the implementation and use of eHealth technologies in practice.

    • How can theory help with implementation?

      Get to know what the Diffusion of Innovations theory is and how it can assist in the implementation of eHealth.

    • How can we account for perceptions of an eHealth technology?

      Learn more about the perceptions of technologies and see how they are related to the implementation of eHealth.

    • Why are characteristics of the individual important?

      Discover in what way people’s personalities and expectations can influence implementation.

    • How to involve contextual factors?

      Get acquainted with the use and added value of business modeling in eHealth development.

    • Wrapping up Week 5

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

  • Week 6

    Why and how does eHealth work?

    • Welcome to Week 6

      Find out more about what you will learn this week, which is all about the evaluation of eHealth technologies.

    • How does eHealth influence evaluation?

      Get to know more about the implications of the combination of technology, psychology and healthcare for the evaluation of eHealth.

    • How to create by evaluating?

      Discover what the aim of formative evaluation is and in what ways it can be conducted.

    • What is summative evaluation?

      Learn why and how to evaluate the effectiveness of eHealth technologies on health and healthcare, and get acquainted with log data.

    • Wrapping up Week 6

      Look back at this week and test if you have understood its essence.

    • End of the course summary!

      Round up the course with us and your co-learners. Take one final quiz on all the weeks and let us know what you think of the course!

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Explain the term eHealth, give examples of possible forms of eHealth, and identify possible benefits and barriers
  • Apply and recognize theoretical principles from Human Centred Design, behaviour change theory and the Persuasive Systems Design Model when designing an eHealth technology
  • Identify the most important principles and theories from eHealth implementation and recognize implementation methods
  • Describe how the phases and principles of the CeHRes Roadmap are used in the development of eHealth technologies
  • Explain the rationale behind formative and summative evaluation and recognize methods from both forms of evaluation

Who is the course for?

This course is suitable for everyone who wants or needs to know more about eHealth and all of its possibilities. No specific knowledge or education background is assumed, since all concepts that are discussed will be briefly explained. For learners who desire more depth, further reading is available.

Who will you learn with?

I’m assistant professor at the University of Twente and teach eMental Health to psychology students. My research focuses on using technology and design to increase involvement in eHealth interventions

I am a PhD student at the University of Twente. My research focuses on the use and implementation of online platforms for chronic and mental healthcare.

My research focuses on the development of eHealth technologies that monitor and coach aggressive behaviour of forensic psychiatric patients. I am a teacher in Health Psychology & Technology as well.

I'm a professor Persuasive Health Technology at the University of Twente. My research & tuition focuses on persuasive designs to increase trust, engagement and adherence to technologies.

Who developed the course?

University of Twente

As a young and entrepreneurial university in the Netherlands, the University of Twente prepares young people to tackle the grand challenges the world will be facing during the coming decades.

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