The aim of the course is to teach fundamental concepts for the design and implementation of mobile applications in the field of health care. In particular, we will immerse ourselves in the field of mental health IT, i.e. supporting psychotherapy and its various treatment methods with the use of mobile information technologies (specific area of interest: depression).

Students are taught paradigms related to user interaction design, mobile development and usability engineering in the area of mobile healthcare applications. On top of that, they are introduced to the HL7 FHIR standard, which was especially designed for use in mobile applications. Upon finishing this course, students have the necessary capabilities to plan mobile applications in the health sector, perform analyses in the clinical context and to design and implement these applications.

The theme of this year's course is "mental (mobile) health IT wrt. depression".

The course is divided into several lectures as well as an exercise (a project), whereas the bigger focus (!) will be on the exercise part. 

The lectures are planned to be held as a block at the beginning of the semester. Amongst others, following topics will be discussed:

• Mobile basics
• Android/iOS Basics
• Human Computer Interaction in mobile computing
• providing theoretical basics wrt depression
• structure and definition of the HL7 FHIR standard (for transmitting data from mobile devices to server systems), how to reasonably embed FHIR in a system (what kind of APIs are out there and ready to use etc.). 

Based on the contents of the lecture, students work together in groups of 3 in order to design and implement a system (mobile app and restful web application, that communicate via the FHIR standard). This entire system should be used as a supportive tool to be embedded in a psychotherapeutic treatment setting with special focus on patients suffering from depression.

Didactic Approach: The research group provides competent engineering perspectives. For this lecture this means: provide the necessary technical basis, guidance for situational research, understanding of basic principles and implementation technologies, testing and experience in planning, analysis, design and implementation of a dedicated mobile application.

Notes

This course will only take place, if at least 9 students have enrolled (would be 3 groups for the exercise part), at a maximum we will be able to work with 21 students this semester.

The option to attend classes on a voluntary basis to deepen your knowledge regarding specific aspects of "Mobile App Engineering" is available.

Effort for the student (ECTS-Breakdown):

• 1h Preliminary Talk
• 7,5h Lectures (= 5 x 90 mins)
• 60h Carrying out project work in groups of 3
• 6,5h Preparing for final presentation + final presentation

Total: 75 hours (3 ECTS)