RHED-C: Remote Healthcare for Eating Disorders during (and post) COVID-19
There is a recent push towards remote healthcare service provision, further accelerated due to the pandemic. But recent research suggests that current technologies may fall short when it comes to meeting the needs of the users.
RHED-C includes a range of data collection methods, including a series of interviews and co-design workshops with individuals with lived experience of EDs and/or ED service provision – to identify limitations of current technology offerings for remote healthcare provision. An additional UK-nationwide survey is also used to assess the challenges and benefits of remote support for eating disorders. Followed by co-design workshops to enabled exploration of ideas and prototype generation to suggest new technologies that could address some of the current shortfalls with remote treatment technologies.
Our results support recent findings that current technology for remote healthcare services have some significant shortcomings. The dissemination of our findings includes an animation co-made by people with lived experience of remote support. We also provide a number of prototypes to demonstrate the type of new technologies which could help to address these issues. The result is ConnectED on The Journey: a good practice toolkit to aid remote care co-designed by people with lived experience of accessing remote care for eating disorders, and support providers.
We found that improved technology is required for more effective, accepted, and secure access to remote healthcare treatment. This is relevant not only during the current COVID-19 pandemic but also for the future use of remote service provision for EDs and health issues more generally. We have also found that a hybrid approach to eating disorders care is needed, with remote care as a complement, and not a replacement for, remote support.
People: Dawn Branley-Bell (Principal Investigator); Claire Murphy-Morgan (Senior Research Assistant)
Creative Team: Henry Collingham, Paulina Malowaniec, Helen Shaddock
Key digital outputs:
RHED-C Animation: "In The Only House in the World, but Everyone was Doing The Same" – Awarded TOP 3 FILM at the prestigious CHI (Computer Human Interaction) 2024 conference in Honolulu. https://rhedc.uk/animation/
ConnectED on The Journey Toolkit: https://rhedc.uk/toolkit
Partners: Beat; Eating Distress North East (EDNE); REDCAN (Regional Eating Disorders Charities Network and Alliance); First Steps ED; South Yorkshire Eating Disorders Association (SYEDA); Dr Catherine Talbot, Bournemouth University; Institute for Internet Technologies & Applications, JOANNEUM, Austria; Red Hat Software Developers; Hope Virgo, ED ambassador, author and ‘Dump the Scales’ Campaign Founder; Lizzie Vass, BEAT ambassador and lived experience advisor; Dave Chawner, activist, stand-up comedian, and author of 'Weight Expectations'.