Usability and usefulness in designing patient-centric systems in afro-centric setting

Paradigm shift for the delivery of healthcare services to be patient-centric across the globe cannot be overemphasised. Most patients are willing to be active participants in sharing and managing their own health information. Information Communication and Technologies have facilitated the provision of information systems and mobile applications to enable the exchange of health information between health consumers and health providers. Unfortunately, the systems that have been deployed in an African setting have not benefited most of the users due to a number of reasons. One of the factors is that most systems are not usable in the African context as they emulate designs from developed countries and hence rendering them less useful. This paper therefore intends to fill such a gap in the quest for designing usable and useful patient-centric systems, especially in an Afro-centric setting.