Supporting Collaboration to Preserve the Quality of Life of Patients at Home—A Design Case Study

International audienceIn this chapter, we present a design case study that we have conducted to investigate and support an innovative way of organizing home care that takes place in the city of Troyes (N–E of France). We have observed the collaborative practices of a group of self-employed health care professionals. Among this group, collaboration occurs in episodes depending on the requirement of the patient's situation. We have identified: (1) the centrality of coordinative artifacts; (2) the complexity of addressing issues beyond the medical scope; (3) the adoption of different rhythms of collaboration depending on the patient's situation. These findings led us to define some implications for design, that were discussed during design workshops, and that we implemented in the Classeur pour une Approche en Réseau Efficace (CARE) application. We observed the use of CARE at five patients' homes during 5 months. This pilot study helped us to identify three topics of importance for supporting collaboration in home care context: (1) ensuring flexibility to accommodate different values, (2) building trust, and (3) open sharing