User-Involved Design of Digital Health Products

While eHealth, and especially its two constitutive technologies of mobile health (mHealth) and Health Internet of Things (HIoT), is rising in importance due to unparalleled patient self-management opportunities, raising issues and concerns also emerge regarding user acceptance and use of those technologies. Privacy, security, and other trust-related issues prevent the widespread implementation of eHealth. Health organizations and providers may struggle to find the right balance between technological prowess and effective data governance with respect for privacy. Finding the right balance between organizational imperatives and user perspectives might be solved by adopting the patient attitude through the prism of patient value. More specifically, this chapter proposes to adopt and develop the concepts of consumer value, co-creation of value, and Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) from marketing scholarship to the field of healthcare. It stipulates that user-involved design anchored in the patients’ perception of value and co-creation of patient value might prove superior to the organization-centric design rooted in a transactional framework and product-centered perspective.