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The concepts to overcome the barriers to mHealth monitoring of seniors in home care or in assisted living facilities
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Veröffentlicht: | 27. September 2023 |
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Gliederung
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Hintergrund: Mobile (m) Health monitoring is an attractive concept for general practitioners for remote monitoring of seniors who are in home care or are residents of assisted living facilities. mHealth uses mobile applications for collection of symptoms and/or health parameters (the so-called “digital biomarkers”: SpO2, heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) This information can be shared in real time or asynchronously with the general practitioner. Barriers to wider implementation of mHealth monitoring in seniors' care include unavailability of smartphones, insufficient digital literacy, and limited technical prowess.
Fragestellung: What is the workable concept for mHealth monitoring of seniors to overcome the aforementioned barriers?
Methoden: mHealth application that collects the symptoms (questionnaires) and digital biomarkers has been co-designed and co-developed, and pilot-tested in patients with Long COVID, including older individuals with limited digital literacy. Interviews regarding practicability and acceptability were held within one assisted living facility (case study).
Ergebnisse: We first developed a concept of “rental smartphones” for home care. The “rental smartphones” can be used by the senior for the duration of monitoring. After disinfection and data deletion, the smartphones can be transferred to other seniors. The smartphones are equipped with mHealth application but are stripped of other features. Conforming to digital data safety regulations, data traffic in “rental smartphones” was set to only allow the data transmission to secure server at the monitoring station. A “starter” information kit for mHealth monitoring was prepared for the caregivers. This concept was further adapted for the assisted living facility to address the central character of monitoring (e.g., one “rental tablet” with mHealth application to cover the monitoring of several residents).
Diskussion: Barriers to mHealth monitoring in seniors can be overcome by utilization of “rental smartphones” /“rental tablets”, with appropriate information.
Take Home Message für die Praxis: This concept can also support the televisits by general practitioners. Funding: BMBF (“egePAN Unimed”), EU (“EarlyCare”)