Designing a Smartphone-Based Pulse Oximeter for Children in South Africa (Phefumla Project): Qualitative Analysis of Human-Centered Design Workshops With Health Care Workers

Abstract BackgroundPulse oximeters noninvasively measure blood oxygen levels, but these devices have rarely been designed for low-resource settings and are inconsistently available at outpatient clinics. ObjectiveThe Phefumla MethodsWe purposively sampled 19 health care workers from 5 clinics in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Using a human-centered design approach, ResultsParticipants expressed a positive sentiment toward the idea of a smartphone pulse oximeter and suggested that a pediatric device would address an important gap in outpatient care. Specifically, participants expressed a preference for the prototype that they felt enabled more diversity in the way it could be used. There was a strong tendency to prioritize pragmatic design features, such as robustness, which was largely dictated by health care worker context. They also added features that would allow the oximeter device to serve other clinical functions in addition to oxygen saturation measurement, such as temperature and respiratory rate measurements. ConclusionsOur end user–centered rapid participatory approach led to tangible design changes and prompted design discussions that the team had not previously considered. Overall, health care workers prioritized pragmatism for pediatric pulse oximeter device design.