Perceptions of seniors with heart failure regarding autonomous zero-effort monitoring of physiological parameters in the smart-home environment

摘要

Background: Technological advances are leading to the ability to autonomously monitor patient’s health status in their own homes, to enable aging-in-place.Objectives: To understand the perceptions of seniors with heart failure (HF) regarding smart-home systems to monitor their physiological parameters.Methods: In this qualitative study, HF outpatients were invited to a smart-home lab, where they completed a sequence of activities, during which the capacity of 5 autonomous sensing modalities was compared to gold standard measures. Afterwards, a semi-structured interview was undertaken. These were transcribed and analyzed using an interpretive-descriptive approach.Results: Five themes emerged from the 26 interviews: (1) perceptions of technology, (2) perceived benefits of autonomous health monitoring, (3) disadvantages of autonomous monitoring, (4) lack of perceived need for continuous health monitoring, and (5) preferences for autonomous monitoring.Conclusions: Patient perception towards autonomous monitoring devices was positive, lending credenceto zero-effort technology as a viable and promising approach.