Co-creating and Evaluating a Web-app Mapping Real-World Health Care Services for Students: The servi-Share Protocol

Abstract

BackgroundUniversity students aged 18-30 years are a population group reporting low access to health care services, with high rates of avoidance and delay of medical care. This group also reports not having appropriate information about available health care services. However, university students are at risk for several health problems, and regular medical consultations are recommended in this period of life. New digital devices are popular among the young, and Web-apps can be used to facilitate easy access to information regarding health care services. A small number of electronic health (eHealth) tools have been developed with the purpose of displaying real-world health care services, and little is known about how such eHealth tools can improve access to care.ObjectiveThis paper describes the processes of co-creating and evaluating the beta version of a Web-app aimed at mapping and describing free or low-cost real-world health care services available in the Bordeaux area of France, which is specifically targeted to university students.MethodsThe co-creation process involves: (1) exploring the needs of students to know and access real-world health care services; (2) identifying the real-world health care services of interest for students; and (3) deciding on a user interface, and developing the beta version of the Web-app. Finally, the evaluation process involves: (1) testing the beta version of the Web-app with the target audience (university students aged 18-30 years); (2) collecting their feedback via a satisfaction survey; and (3) planning a long-term evaluation.ResultsThe co-creation process of the beta version of the Web-app was completed in August 2016 and is described in this paper. The evaluation process started on September 7, 2016. The project was completed in December 2016 and implementation of the Web-app is ongoing.ConclusionsWeb-apps are an innovative way to increase the health literacy of young people in terms of delivery of and access to health care. The creation of Web-apps benefits from the involvement of stakeholders (eg, students and health care providers) to correctly identify the real-world health care services to be displayed.

Exploring Digital Health Use and Opinions of University Students: Field Survey Study

“…This might be explained by the fact that students often live far from their family and hometown and recur to the internet to find a health professional or service near their new accommodation. Digital health interventions displaying the closest, safest, and most appropriate health services could meet the needs of a good portion of university students [ 23 ].…”

“…This study was conducted within the framework of the larger ongoing i-Share cohort study (Internet-Based Students Health Research Enterprise), a French nationwide Web-based survey on the health and well-being of university students, whose principal investigators and operational staff are based at the University of Bordeaux. Drawing on some findings of the i-Share survey [ 23 ], we were inspired to look further in the issue of digital health use among university students. This specific cross-sectional questionnaire study was then conducted from March to April 2017 as an exploratory study in a new sample of students at the University of Bordeaux.…”

Using the Ophelia (Optimising Health Literacy and Access to Health Services) process as a practical tool for health promotion program delivery in various Philippine communities

“…There have been other initiatives in improving health literacy such as digital health literacy initiatives in Europe, 18 assessment toolkits in the United States 19 and various other assessment and information toolkits. Similarly, there have been initiatives in creating tools for co‐creation for health 20–22 . However, Ophelia is currently the only existing framework specifically for assessment and co‐creation of health literacy interventions through co‐creation.…”

“…Similarly, there have been initiatives in creating tools for co-creation for health. [20][21][22] However, Ophelia is currently the only existing framework specifically for assessment and co-creation of health literacy interventions through co-creation. In the second phase, collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders was done through the co-creation process.…”

Describing the Process and Tools Adopted to Cocreate a Smartphone App for Obesity Prevention in Childhood: Mixed Method Study (Preprint)

“…Its application in health services and prevention has been recommended [17,18], in particular when IT tools are proposed [19][20][21][22]. There are published case studies on the development of apps and other eHealth tools [19,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”