Hwayoung Cho, PhD, RN

Teaching

Dr. Cho teaches graduate Nursing and Nursing Informatics courses for Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs, including Applied Statistical Analysis, Theory and Research for Nursing, and Nursing Informatics and Information Management.

Research

Expertise: electronic health records/clinical decision support; mHealth; usability; health disparities; symptom care

Dr. Cho’s research has focused on using technology for underserved populations to reduce health disparities, promote health outcomes and improve health-related quality of life. Her research work focuses on translating real-world evidence into informatics tools to facilitate the implementation of evidence-based practice. Specifically, her expertise is to establish the usability of technology-based interventions (e.g., mHealth apps) for patients in underserved communities (racial and ethnic minorities and those from low-socioeconomic groups) and EHR-based clinical decision support (CDS) tools for clinicians in hospitals.

Service

Dr. Cho holds memberships in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Academy Health, Sigma Theta Tau International, and Eastern Nurses Research Society. Her service activities include serving on professional association committees such as Member-at-Large for AMIA Clinical Research Informatics Working Groups (2021-current), Search Committee: Determinants of Health for UF Health AI Positions at UF Health Science Center, Scientific Program Committee for AMIA conferences (2019-current), Guest Editor of the Special Issue “Mobile Health Technology” for the (international) MDPI Journals Future Internet (2022-current), and reviewing manuscripts.

Dr. Cho’s areas of expertise are nursing informatics, electronic health records, clinical decision support, mobile health, usability, symptom science, innovative methods, health disparities and underserved populations. Her recent research focuses on how to design and tailor technology-based interventions for vulnerable groups. Technology-based intervention have the potential to be an effective delivery mode of health information for underserved populations with chronic diseases because these populations often face barriers to accessing health information. An important part of her research is evaluating the usability of health information technology with an in-depth understanding of interactions between user, system, task, and real-world environment. As usability factors are major obstacles to technology adoption, usability must be considered before and after prototyping takes place to support the quality of technology in use. Dr. Cho has conducted multi-level usability evaluations using the most appropriate evaluation methods at each stage throughout the development process of the technology, including both quantitative as well as qualitative approaches, such as an innovative eye-tracking method, a card sorting technique, a heuristic evaluation, a cognitive walk-through, think-aloud protocols, focus groups and in-depth interviews.

0000-0002-6023-5309