Clinical decision support for increased-risk organ transplants: participatory design.

Currently there are over 1,600 Australians awaiting a life-saving organ transplant. Approximately 20% of potential donors have a history of behaviors before their death that increased their risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C to potential recipients. Donation and transplant professionals need to weigh the risks of disease transmission against the benefits of timely transplantation. Using participatory design methodology, we explored the design needs for a mobile and web-based disease transmission risk calculator to support transplant decisions. We held five design activities involving different occupation groups. Participants included donation and transplantation clinicians, coordinators, administrators, and specialist consultants. Methods included surveys, workshops, interviews, and usability studies. This paper describes our design process, presents the findings, and describes our design decisions and the resulting app. The application will soon be trialed within multiple hospitals in Australia.