Supportive home health care technology for older adults: Attitudes and implementation

Abstract

Healthcare delivered at home via telehealth technology may save on both individual and societal healthcare costs. Three studies investigated potential attitudinal barriers to home healthcare adoption. Results from the first concerning adults' privacy concerns and mobile device preferences showed that attitudes clustered into 4 factors and that older adults, particularly males, showed less concern than younger adults about privacy. The second and third studies explored comfort with a wearable device and the role of aesthetics over 2-week and 6-month intervals. Results showed that older adults had stable ratings for comfort while wearing a watch device designed to collect data in real time and that aspects of physical comfort predicted use over a six-month time period. Taken together, the studies provide evidence that attitudes about privacy and comfort for wearable health devices are unlikely to be significant barriers to adoption, though first impressions are important for all age groups.

Keywords: aging in place; attitudes; home health monitoring; privacy; telehealth.

Conflict of interest statement

Author disclosure statement As of this writing, the authors declare no competing financial conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1

US healthcare expenditures in 2013 in billions of US dollars and percentages by sector. hospital care (38%) and physician & clinical services (24%) comprise over 60% of the total

Figure 2

The watch device user interface (in storage mode) as used in study 3