Challenges for deploying IoT wearable medical devices among the ageing population

Abstract

The phenomenon of ageing population is raising substantial pressure to the national health and welfare systems of many countries in the world, and can be a potential threat to social stability and economic development. IoT wearable medical technologies have the potential to aid this struggle, but anecdotal evidence showed that large-scale deployment of IoT wearable devices among the ageing population could be fraught with challenges, which have not been well reported in academic literature. Therefore, this paper aims to address this knowledge gap by reporting on an exploratory study that firstly investigated older people’s user requirements towards wearable medical devices and secondly explored potential challenges and difficulties for large-scale deployment of such devices. Five focus groups were conducted to collect insights and opinions respectively from five families (i.e. each contained 1–2 elderly members, accompanied with 2–4 family members who held caring responsibilities). The data collected was analyzed by using a thematic analysis approach. The results showed that elderly people have complicated and diverse user requirements towards IoT wearable medical devices, and that a range of challenges related to hardware providers, caregivers, legal regulations and technical features can affect large-scale deployment of such devices. The paper concluded that these identified user requirements and challenges should be carefully considered by wearable hardware designers, system developers, and service providers if they want their innovative products and services to be accepted and deployed among the ageing population globally.