Pivotal Age Information Management:
Learning From the Professional Organizers

Table of Contents

• Project Dates
• Research Partner
• Project Lead
• Description of Project
  

Project Dates

This project began in 2017 and concluded in 2018 with the publication of results in scientific literature. 

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Research Partner

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Project Lead

Cynthia LeRouge, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Health Services Department at the University of Washington. Dr. LeRouge's research and academic service activities have evolved over the past 12 years to focus in the areas of telemedicine, public health informatics, and consumer health informatics. Projects she pursues explore the creation and evaluation of information technology artifacts and process models.   The socio-technical nature of Health Information System (HIS) technologies and processes draws her to explore questions concerning inter-organizational relationships, virtual teams, strategy, user adoption and diffusion, user-centered design, workflow, usability, system design and implementation, project management, and outcomes (process, clinical, and structure) spawned through the use of technologies by healthcare organizations and health consumers.

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Description

This study sought the opinions of organizing and productivity professionals about the challenges, barriers, and potential solutions to manage and organize personal health information, especially for baby boomers. Results will help identify best practices and potential training needs for organizing and productivity professionals. NAPO participated in the recruitment of respondents, and nineteen NAPO members participated in the data collection via a series of open-ended questions. 

Dr. Cynthia LeRouge at the University of Washington investigated the organizational circumstances and needs of people in later middle-age, our current baby boomers. These are people born between 1946 and 1964 who have reached a pivotal age in their lives. The research focused on the special challenges this age group faces in organizing health, wealth, and legacy information due to circumstances such as downsizing, "keeper" mentality, and being "sandwiched" between parents and children. Two focus groups of NAPO members were conducted to provide insight regarding organizing the digital and tangible for this age group as a start to this promising research effort.

If your organization is involved in market research, we'd love to brainstorm opportunities like this within NAPO. Please complete the NAPO Research Partner form by clicking here.

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