ICT and the future of healthcare: Aspects of pervasive health monitoring

ABSTRACT

Along with the digital revolution, information and communication technology applications are currently transforming the delivery of health and social care services. This paper investigates prevailing opinions toward future technology-based healthcare solutions among Austrian healthcare professionals. During a biphasic online Delphi survey, panelists rated expected outcomes of two future scenarios describing pervasive health monitoring applications. Experts perceived that the scenarios were highly innovative, but only moderately desirable, and that their implementation could especially improve patients’ knowledge, quality of healthcare, and living standard. Contrarily, monetary aspects, technical prerequisites, and data security were identified as key obstacles. We further compared the impact of professional affiliation. Clearly, opinions toward pervasive healthcare differed between the interest groups, medical professionals, patient advocates, and administrative personnel. These data suggest closer collaborations between stakeholder groups to harmonize differences in expectations regarding pervasive health monitoring.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging society
• Austria
• Delphi survey
• healthcare stakeholders

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the participants of the preliminary survey for their helpful and valuable detailed comments and suggestions. The authors also express their sincere appreciation to all members of the expert panel.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.