HERO

„HERO“ –The Heart Rehab Information Tool

Designing a digital prototype to support patients’ pathway to cardiac rehabilitation

What is this project about?

Previous research has shown that patients feel uninformed about the follow-up treatment after an acute cardiac event, such as a heart attack. For example, it is often unclear how to obtain a referral for cardiac rehabilitation.

The concept for the HERO-app was developed in co-design workshops with 17 former rehabilitation participants and health experts from nursing and physiotherapy.

Evaluation Study

The HERO app is now being tested by patients in an evaluation study to find out whether the design and content are tailored to the needs of the users.

We look for test users:

Publications about the HERO project

  • Höppchen I, Kulnik ST, Meschtscherjakov A, Niebauer J, Pfannerstill F, Smeddinck JD, Strumegger EM, Young F, Wurhofer D. 2024. “Be with me and stay with me”: Insights from Co-Designing a Digital Companion to Support Patients Transitioning from Hospital to Cardiac Rehabilitation. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 890–904. https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661633
  • Höppchen I, Kulnik ST, Meschtscherjakov A, Niebauer J, Pfannerstill P, Smeddinck JD, Strumegger EM, Young F, Wurhofer D. 2024. Co-designing an information map guiding patients on their journey to cardiac rehabilitation in Austria. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Volume 23, IssueSupplement_1. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn/zvae098.073

Funding

This project was funded as part of the OIS Enrichment Fund of the OIS Center of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft from September 2022 to March 2024.

Short explainer video to illustrate HERO (only available in german)

Project Lead

Isabel Höppchen, MSc

Pre-Doc

vfnory.ubrccpura@quc.yot.np.ng