User involvement throughout development of technology to support diabetes foot care: a case illustration of the devices for dignity PPIE model.

Abstract

The successful development and implementation of any healthcare technology requires input from multiple stakeholders including clinical leads, trust information technology directorates as well as project management and procurement. In this process however, a key stakeholder that is often overlooked is the patient.This paper illustrates the crucial importance of patient involvement to avoid poor design and poor uptake of technology and subsequently poor health outcomes.To highlight this, we share a case example evidencing involvement of people with lived experience of foot ulcers resulting from Diabetic foot neuropathy throughout identification of unmet technology needs, design requirements for the device and iterative device development and evaluation.