Caregivers’ Early Experiences Using CareMobi: An mHealth Application to Support Care Coordination

Abstract

Background:

Family caregivers often struggle to track daily caregiving tasks (eg, managing medications, appointments). To address this, our team developed CareMobi, a mobile app designed to make caregiving more organized, collaborative, and manageable.

Objective:

We sought to evaluate early user satisfaction, real-world utility, and perceived value of CareMobi among informal caregivers.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey was administered between October 2023 and January 2024 to CareMobi users. The survey included Likert-scale items assessing satisfaction and usability, and open-ended prompts exploring use cases and improvement suggestions. Descriptive statistics summarized quantitative data, and open-ended responses were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

Results:

Among respondents (N = 51), 82% reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the app, and 76% found it easy or very easy to use. Highly valued features included appointment/calendar tracking (32 selections), health progress monitoring (30 selections), and file storage (20 selections). Caregivers use CareMobi across diverse contexts, from elder care to self-management, to coordinate care among multiple individuals and streamline information access. Open-ended responses revealed 3 primary areas of impact: improved communication, centralized information management, and support for symptom and medication tracking. Users requested enhancements to support care team coordination, emphasizing the importance of simple, functional tools for daily caregiving.

Conclusion:

Preliminary findings, based on a small, self-selected sample, suggest CareMobi is a user-friendly tool that supports informal caregivers and facilitates care coordination. Results highlight the importance of caregiver-centered app design and indicate the need for further evaluation through longitudinal, mixed-methods research to assess long-term outcomes and integration into care routines.

Introduction

In the United States alone, more than 53 million adults, or informal caregivers, provide unpaid care to relatives or friends; they are most often supporting older adults who are managing chronic illnesses, functional limitations, and complex medical needs.¹ Approximately 50% of informal caregivers are performing tasks usually reserved for trained professionals, such as giving injections, managing medications, managing tube feedings, and dealing with incontinence issues.^1,2

Caregiver Challenges in Care Coordination

Despite their critical role in implementing patient care plans, performing health monitoring, and coordinating across healthcare providers, caregivers are often left without adequate tools to organize, track, and communicate care-related information.^3–7 As a result, many rely on improvised or outdated systems—such as notebooks, memory, or text messages—often making it difficult to track changes over time, exchange information, or access complete, accurate information during clinical encounters.^6,8,9

Although technological interventions have been proposed to alleviate these burdens, few digital health tools that support day-to-day care management are explicitly designed for or rigorously evaluated with end-users in real-world settings.^4,6,7,9 Moreover, many do not enable community-based carers (eg, home health aides, adult day centers) to be added to the team.^9,10 Instead, many commercially available apps focus on isolated tasks (eg, booking services or medication reminders), lacking an integrated approach that reflects the multifaceted responsibilities of caregivers, as well as the multiple people that might be involved in supporting day-to-day care needs (eg, giving medications, preparing meals and monitoring eating habits, engaging with healthcare providers).^7,9,11,12

CareMobi (mhealth for Organizations to Bolster Interconnectedness), a smartphone application, was developed by the study team to address the consistent need for improved care coordination and communication between family caregivers and others involved in a person’s day-to-day care, including family members, home health aides, and adult day centers.^13–15 Prior work has described the user-centered design process, prototype development, and early feasibility testing of CareMobi.^13–15 The present study is the first to report on real-world implementation and user experiences following public app release, thereby extending prior design- and feasibility-focused work. CareMobi is a user-centered platform that allows individuals to collect, organize, and share care- and health-related information independently or with designated care partners; access by multiple users and healthcare providers is optional and not required for use. Information sharing may be initiated by caregivers or healthcare providers, depending on the care context.^13–15 CareMobi serves as a centralized “hub” by which caregivers can provide updates and track the health progress of a person who cannot do so independently, as well as share any urgent concerns and observations, such as new or worsening confusion, behavioral changes, or abnormal vital signs (Figure 1).^13–15

Figure 1.

CareMobi app interface.

Core features include medication reminders (adherence), appointment and calendar tracking (care coordination), symptom and health tracking (monitoring over time), and secure document storage (information continuity). These features are designed to support the critical early identification of clinical issues and to reduce care fragmentation, with the goal of supporting care coordination and reducing care fragmentation among individuals with complex care needs.^13,14 CareMobi is offered freely as a research tool with no revenue-generating, subscription, licensing, or advertising components.

Purpose

CareMobi was co-developed with clinicians, researchers, and caregivers using principles of user-centered design with multiple rounds of prototype testing.^13–17 As part of a user-centered process,^16,17 we evaluated early user satisfaction, app usability, real-world utility, and opportunities for improvement. Conducting an evaluation at this stage was essential to ensure the app met the actual needs and workflows of caregivers, to identify pain points that may hinder adoption, and to gather feedback to inform iterative design improvements grounded in real-world use. In this brief communication, we present the results of a preliminary survey-based evaluation of the CareMobi app among caregivers who downloaded it from the preferred app store.

Methods

Study Design

We administered an online cross-sectional survey (see Supplemental File), assessing usability and satisfaction in real-world circumstances, between October 2023 and January 2024.

Sampling and Recruitment

The sampling frame included 986 individuals who had downloaded the CareMobi app on or before January 1, 2024. All registered users aged 18 years or older were eligible to participate. There were no exclusion criteria aside from the inability to access and understand the English-language, internet-based survey. Eligible participants were invited to complete the survey via an email distributed through the CareMobi newsletter. CareMobi is freely available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the United States (https://www.caremobi.org). Availability outside the United States may be limited depending on regional data privacy and regulatory requirements. The survey link was accessible via mobile devices or any internet-enabled platform. Three reminder emails were sent monthly as part of the CareMobi newsletter throughout the study period to encourage participation. Participation was entirely voluntary, and no financial or other incentives were provided. App usage or engagement metrics (eg, frequency or duration of use) was not collected as part of this survey. Of the 986 eligible users, 51 completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 5%.

Survey Instrument

To respect the time constraints of family caregivers, the survey was intentionally brief, designed for completion within 5 to 10 minutes (see Supplemental File). It comprised 4 key domains:

1. Demographics: Participants could provide optional, non-identifying demographic information, including age, geographic location, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.

2. Quantitative Evaluation: Participants rated 2 items using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Very Dissatisfied to 5 = Very Satisfied, with a neutral midpoint). These items assessed overall satisfaction and ease of use and were intentionally selected to minimize respondent burden while capturing core usability constructs most relevant to caregivers in real-world contexts. Although the items were not adapted verbatim from a single validated instrument, they were designed to assess domains aligned with established usability and technology acceptance frameworks commonly used in digital health research, including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and overall satisfaction (eg, System Usability Scale [SUS], Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire [PSSUQ], Mobile App Usability Questionnaire [MAUQ], and the Technology Acceptance Model). This pragmatic approach was considered appropriate for an exploratory evaluation focused on feasibility and user experience; future studies will incorporate full validated instruments to enable more rigorous psychometric assessment and cross-study comparison.

3. Feature Prioritization: A multiple-select question asked participants to indicate the app features they found most useful. Response options included medication reminders, calendar and appointment tracking, health progress monitoring (eg, vital signs, nutrition, care updates), and secure document storage.

4. Qualitative Feedback: Open-ended questions invited users to describe how CareMobi had supported them in real-life caregiving situations and to offer suggestions for app improvement.

Data Collection and Analysis

Survey responses were collected via Qualtrics, exported to a .csv format for analysis, and stored on a secure, password-protected platform. No personally identifiable information was collected, ensuring respondent anonymity and confidentiality. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies, percentages, and means, were calculated using SPSS (version 31; IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) to summarize participant characteristics (reported in Table 1) and responses to the quantitative items. Responses to open-ended questions were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Codes were iteratively grouped into higher-order themes based on conceptual similarity and frequency across responses. Two members of the research team independently reviewed and coded the data, identifying recurring themes and illustrative quotes. Intercoder agreement was established through discussion, and discrepancies were resolved through consensus.

Table 1.

Participant Demographic Characteristics (N = 51).

Category	n	%
Age
18–29	0	0
30–49	12	23.5
50–64	18	35.3
65 +	7	13.7
Unknown	14	27.5
Gender
Male	12	23.5
Female	24	47.1
Prefer not to answer	2	3.9
Unknown	13	25.5
Race
White	31	60.8
Black or African American	0	0
American Indian or Alaska Native	1	2.0
Asian	3	5.9
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander	0	0
Other, please specify	1	2.0
Prefer Not to Answer	2	3.9
Unknown	13	25.5
Location
Central United States	7	13.7
Eastern United States	12	23.5
Northern United States	1	2.0
Southern United States	5	9.8
Western United States	9	17.6
International	1	2.0
Unknown	16	31.4
Currently caring for
Self	4	7.8
Parent	24	47.1
Grandparents	4	7.8
Child	1	2.0
Patient or Client	1	2.0
Other (please describe)	4	7.8
Unknown	13	25.5

Ethical Considerations

All participants provided written informed consent prior to participation, and all data were deidentified to protect confidentiality. CareMobi’s terms of use specify that the platform is provided for research and non-commercial purposes only.

Results

Over the 3-month recruitment period, 51 (5%) out of 986 possible users completed the survey (see Table 2). The majority of respondents reported using the app to support the care of an aging parent (47%, n = 24), followed by their own personal health management (8%, n = 4), and care of a grandparent (8%, n = 4). In addition, some users also applied CareMobi to care for their children, extending beyond their initial intended use of the app. Discovery pathways varied, with most users finding CareMobi through web searches (25%, n = 13), while smaller proportions cited app store searches (6%, n = 3) and social media (4%, n = 2). These were optional survey items.

Table 2.

Summary of Quantitative Findings (N = 51).

Metric/feature	n	%
Overall user satisfaction
Satisfied/very satisfied	42	82.4
Neutral	7	13.7
Dissatisfied/very dissatisfied	2	3.9
Ease of use and navigation
Easy/very easy	39	76.5
Neutral	11	21.6
Difficult/very difficult	0	0
Unknown	1	2.0
Most useful features (multi-select)
Appointments & calendar	32
Health progress tracking	30
Storage of important files	20
Medication reminders	18
Others	3
Unknown	3

User Demographics

Among those who provided answers to optional demographic questions, 47% (n = 24) identified as female, and 35% (n = 18) were between the ages of 50 and 64. In addition, 14% (n = 7) of those who responded were over the age of 65. Most respondents identified as White (61%, n = 31) but represented all regions of the United States. Participant demographic characteristics are summarized in Table 1.

Satisfaction and Usability

Overall satisfaction with CareMobi was high: 82% (n = 42) of users indicated they were either “Satisfied” or “Very Satisfied” (see Table 2). Only 2 users (4%) expressed dissatisfaction. Ratings for ease of use were similarly positive (see Table 2). More than half of the users (76%, n = 39) rated the app as “Easy” or “Very Easy” to use. Notably, no users rated the app as “Difficult” or “Very Difficult.”

Most-Valued Features and Suggestions for Improvement

When asked about the most useful features of the app (multiple responses allowed; Table 2), the Appointments & Calendar feature was selected most frequently (n = 32), followed closely by Health Progress Tracking (n = 30), which includes logging vital signs, nutrition, and care updates. In addition, 39% (n = 20) found the file storage function valuable, and 35% (n = 18) highlighted medication reminders as especially helpful.

Open-ended suggestions for improvement were provided by 35 respondents and are summarized in Table 3. Three major themes emerged: (1) enhanced caregiver coordination tools (eg, a list of healthcare providers and contact information, or a caregiver-only communication space); (2) improved information entry and management spaces (eg, notes, printing, and file tagging); and (3) expanded technical computability (eg, integration with pharmacies or desktop platforms).

Table 3.

Summary of Open-Ended Responses (N = 35).

Key theme	Count (n)/exemplar quote(s)
I. Areas for improvement (user suggestions)
Information entry & health management (eg, notes section, tracking bathroom routines, calendar automation, vitals, search)	20
Caregiver coordination & communication (eg, caregiver-only space, chat feature, assigning task reminders, provider contacts)	14
Technical performance & compatibility (eg, sign-in, PC compatibility, PDF export, language settings, printing)	10
II. Positive real-world use cases
Communication & collaboration (caregivers and healthcare professionals)	“My mother in-law is 92 and has some health issues. She has 16 kids plus in-laws that will all be getting into the act. I am sharing this app with them before things get critical. Everyone wants to know what goes n and communications right now is a full-time job.”
	“It assists in keeping my family informed re: medical appointments, medication changes, and health status changes (hospital visits)
	It helps keep family members in the loop about mum’s care needs.”
	“Our family uses the app to communicate information for our parents’ care with each other.”
Streamlined information management & access (store, organize, retrieve, and all relevant caregiving information)	“The app is very useful in centralizing information that the family can access. We have using CareMobi to track my mother in laws’ “journey” with IBS. We would not know another easy way to catalog all of her daily experiences and share them amongst one another. CareMobi makes this happen.”
	“My mother wasn’t sure when she started to feel bloated–I was able to search and find instances where it was mentioned”
	“The last time I had my grandmother in the ER, I was able to use the app to verify her medication list with the intake nurse.”
Health tracking & scheduling (reminders/alerts, symptoms diary, vitals, medication optimization)	“When starting/stopping a med and how patient felt before/after”
	“My wife and I use it to record most recent vitals so we can tell it to the next doctor or medical profession who asks even if it wasn’t us taking them”

Real-World Use Cases

Open-ended responses from users highlighted 3 key ways CareMobi supports real-world caregiving (Table 3).

Improved Communication and Collaboration.

Caregivers emphasized how CareMobi kept family members informed about appointments, medication changes, and health updates. In families with multiple caregivers, the app reduced the burden of constant communication by making information accessible to all: “everyone wants to know what goes on and communication right now is a full-time job.” Users appreciated the shared visibility into care tasks like medications and appointments.

Streamlined Information Management.

Respondents valued having a centralized space to store and access critical information. They cited benefits such as uploading files, searching past symptoms, and quickly referencing medication lists during emergencies. As one user noted, “the app is very useful in centralizing information,” making caregiving more manageable.

Centralizing Health Tracking and Scheduling:

Caregivers used the app to track vital signs, symptoms, and medication changes. It supported communication with providers (“I can tell it to the next doctor who asks”) and helped monitor medication reactions. Several users described using it as a shared symptom diary to capture and share day-to-day observations.

Discussion

This preliminary evaluation offers early insight into who uses CareMobi, how they use it, and how well it meets real-world caregiver needs. Most users were based in the United States, with some international respondents. Notably, 25% discovered the app through independent web searches, suggesting caregivers are actively seeking digital support—a sign of unmet need.^4–6,11,12

CareMobi served a wide range of caregiving scenarios—from older adults to children—and received high satisfaction (82%) and ease of use (76%) ratings. These findings are encouraging, given the high dropout rates associated with complex app interfaces.^17–21 CareMobi’s simple, intuitive interface appears to meet caregivers’ needs for quick access to information and tracking of multiple caregiving functions.^3–5,6,8

Users found features like medication tracking, symptom logs, and collaborative calendars especially helpful for managing chronic and complex conditions and improving family communication.^3,5,8 For example, a caregiver was helping “a loved one with end stage renal disease [to] rehabilitate at home.” These chronic conditions require patients to keep a symptoms journal for medication adjustment and tracking flare-ups (eg, for irritable bowel syndrome), for which qualitative responses are described using CareMobi for health information management and symptom tracking (Table 3).

A very small portion of respondents, 4% (n = 2), were dissatisfied with the experience of using CareMobi. User feedback pointed to 3 main areas for improvement: caregiver coordination, data management, and interoperability. The most frequent request was a provider contact list, followed by caregiver-only communication spaces—features now in development. Notably, users did not express interest in artificial intelligence-based (AI) features (eg, warnings or flags that an individual’s health may be compromised), emphasizing that core caregiving needs remain grounded in day-to-day coordination and task management.^1–3,5,7 Nevertheless, awareness and understanding of such features may vary.

Such feedback is critical to achieving a user-centered design that evolves with the needs of caregivers. Applications that incorporate robust feedback mechanisms, such as surveys, reviews, or in-app support, tend to improve user retention and experience.^17,19,22 Many of the requested changes and suggestions from our findings are already being considered or implemented in ongoing CareMobi development.

These findings contribute to a growing but still limited body of literature on mhealth applications designed specifically for caregivers. Most existing digital tools focus on the care recipient (eg, medication adherence apps) or providers (eg, remote monitoring platforms), often overlooking the unique workflows and needs of informal caregivers.^7,11,12 CareMobi’s user-centered design, broad functionality, and commitment to low-tech accessibility help fill this gap and differentiate it from many other offerings in the caregiving app space. Specifically, themes identified in Table 3 highlight CareMobi’s role as a centralized, caregiver-driven platform for coordinating information, communication, and tracking across multiple caregivers and care contexts beyond the single-task focus of many existing caregiving apps.

Limitations include a small, self-selected sample, lack of behavioral app usage or engagement data (eg, frequency or duration of use), and reliance on self-reports, which limits the generalizability of the findings. The absence of participation incentives may also have contributed to the low response rate (5%). Given that a substantial proportion of respondents (13 of 51; 25%) did not provide demographic information, and combined with the small overall sample size, subgroup analyses were not conducted. This limits our ability to fully characterize who uses the app and may have introduced bias in assessing differences across caregiver subgroups, as patterns of use, perceived utility, and barriers to adoption may vary by caregiver role, race/ethnicity, language, socioeconomic context, or care setting. Consequently, these findings should be interpreted as exploratory and may not be generalizable to the broader population of family caregivers. Future studies should prioritize more complete demographic data collection and larger, more diverse samples to enable subgroup analyses and more rigorous assessment of equity, access, and differential benefit. The predominantly White, U.S.-based, English-speaking sample further limits generalizability, particularly for diverse caregiver populations. Although respondents reported high satisfaction, these findings should be interpreted cautiously, as satisfaction may be overestimated in a highly self-selected sample. While provider perspectives were not captured in this study, our future work will explore how caregiver-generated information can be meaningfully embedded into provider workflows. Future longitudinal research conducted in partnership with home care agencies and other health systems, and informed by implementation science frameworks, will also examine adoption, sustained use, and potential impacts on caregiver- and patient-level outcomes.

Despite the limitations of the study, there are key implications that can inform nursing practice in a range of settings and specialties. The receptivity toward the app among caregivers suggests that nurses should examine how to incorporate it into their interactions with families. Nurses seeking ways to support families in becoming more informed and prepared advocates should actively support and encourage family caregivers’ use of secure, intentionally designed, and rigorously evaluated caregiver-centered apps like CareMobi. Tools like this can serve to enhance family-centered nursing care and, ultimately, patient outcomes. In practice, this means introducing such apps during discharge teaching and care transitions; coaching families to use core functions (medication lists, symptom logs, shared calendars); and building quick reviews of these data into visits or telehealth check-ins to streamline communication and decision-making. While many mHealth apps struggle with low retention and high dropout, which is well documented across the eHealth literature and recent reviews,²² nurses can counter this by setting realistic expectations, offering brief hands-on training, and emphasizing the concrete, day-to-day coordination benefits caregivers say they want.

Conclusion

In summary, this preliminary evaluation of CareMobi reveals strong user satisfaction and perceived value among family caregivers. The app effectively addresses critical challenges in care coordination, information management, and communication, while also offering emotional relief and “peace of mind” in a demanding role. These findings underscore the importance of continued investment in caregiver-centered digital health tools and highlight the need for more rigorous, real-world evaluations. CareMobi’s promising early feedback suggests it has significant potential to support caregivers of individuals with complex care needs. Future mixed-method longitudinal research is warranted to assess the impact of CareMobi on caregiver burden, care coordination, and patient outcomes.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental Material for this article is available online.

Data Availability Statement

The data are unavailable to access publicly due to privacy and ethical restrictions.