A new ski injury registration system architecture using mobile applications to enhance skiing safety

Abstract

Mobile apps play an increasingly important role in healthcare institutions by enhancing the quality of healthcare services. Their role in sport injury prevention is also instrumental. In this article, we propose a system architecture for ski injury registration using mobile apps. Our work follows the idea of integrating and using mHealth apps to manage skiing injuries and to provide higher healthcare service quality and faster availability of data. With this work, we aim to greatly simplify the information workflow between the ski patrollers and the medical centers. Having the right information in the right place and on the right time for the injured person, the ski patroller then delivers to the medical centers that information in a format that is easy to analyze by the medical personnel and be prepared for possible interventions. To develop the mobile interfaces for the ski patrollers, nurses and doctors, we employ user-centered design. The overall system features and implementation are also explained and described in this paper. For evaluation purposes of our proposed system architecture, we have conducted a traditional user test of the ski patroller system in collaboration with the ski patrollers in the ski resort of Trysil in Norway. Moreover, a heuristic evaluation with four evaluators is also conducted. The traditional test had two-evaluation points and based on the results of the tests, we obtained implications for enhancing the design of mobile interfaces for the proposed architecture.