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

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.