eHealthcare for parents - The impact of a multimedia based decision support tool about child health on society, medicine, and care-takers.

This industry-oriented research project is a cooperation between NTNU, a Norwegian company MultiMedicus AS, BI Norwegian School of management and several leading medical institutions in the Boston area. The project management will be a cooperation between NTNU and the Norwegian company. Primary objective of main research project: To test the impact of a web-based child health program for self-diagnosis and decision support on society, medicine, and care-takers. Aim 1: The project aims at developing a mu ltimedia based self-diagnostic/decision support tool/program in cooperation with consumer/user groups in Norway and USA. Aim 2: The program aims to achieve the highest medical quality by cooperating with leading medical experts at NTNU, Trondheim and Ha rvard and Dartmouth Medical Schools, USA. A medical PhD student located at NTNU will be involved especially in this part of the study. Aim 3: The program aims to offer the users high degree of value in use to secure the adoption of the application in all levels of society. Aim 4: The program aims to serve as a prototype-method in the development of similar large scale programs in other health areas. Two PhD students at BI, Oslo will be especially involved in aims 3 and 4. The research methods will includ e surveys and personal interviews of the consumer groups in Norway and USA. A more specified plan for the research elements will be developed during the pre-project phase by having workshops with the US partners. The different roles and tasks for the part ners in the project will then be clarified. To our knowledge the planned main project will be the first that from a research perspective seeks to introduce self-diagnostics through self-service technology in a health setting. A main research topic will b e to register whether access to web information and diagnosis technology will lead to a more efficient use of restricted health resources, reduced costs and increased user satisfaction.