Monitoring Patients in Ambulatory Palliative Care: a Design for an Observational Study

Abstract

We present the setup of an observational study that aims to examine the application of wearables in ambulatory palliative care to monitor the patients’ health status – especially during the transition phase from hospital to home since this phase is critical and often patients are re-hospitalised. Following an user-centred design approach, we performed interviews with patients recruited at the Clinic of Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland. The patient group was perceived as vulnerable and varied largely in physiological burden and mental aspects. Special needs concern primarily obtrusiveness of the system and sensitivity in the work with this patient group. With the deployment of the system, we gathered first experiences: the first patient was tracked over 12 weeks resulting in 84 tracked days, 181 digital questionnaire answers, 40908 collected GPS points, 861 hours of heart rate measurements and positive feedback of the patient.