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Journal of Advanced Nursing - 2025 - Dermody - Multi Perspective Considerations for Health Smart Home Early Phase600.82 kB
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Journal article
Multi Perspective Considerations for Health Smart Home: Early Phase Exploratory Study
Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol.82(1), pp.849-866
2026
PMID: 40172858
Abstract
Aims
This study engaged key stakeholders—older adults, family caregivers, home care support workers, nurses, and home healthcare leaders—to explore perspectives on essential components and integration into home care models, and to explore the role of their technology readiness for health smart homes adoption.
Design
A qualitative methodology with a quantitative component, early-phase exploratory design.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews underwent qualitative thematic analysis, with cross-case analysis comparing stakeholder perspectives to identify convergences and divergences. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse Technology Readiness Index (TRI 2.0) survey data to provide background and context to the qualitative findings.
Results
Among 18 participants—older adults (n = 6), family caregivers (n = 2), nurses (n = 7), and support workers/healthcare leaders (n = 3)—findings reflected optimism for health smart home adoption and its potential to support ageing in place. Nurses and care workers saw health smart home as a tool for improving care coordination and quality of life. Key adoption considerations included education, data visualisation, privacy, and security. Technology readiness scores were moderate, with nurses scoring highest (3.52), followed by caregivers (3.41), support workers (3.13), and older adults (3.10).
Conclusion
While stakeholders were open to integrating health smart home into home care, concerns around usability, security, and training must be addressed to facilitate adoption.
Implications for the Profession
Findings suggest that while health smart home technology holds promise for enhancing ageing in place, varying levels of technology readiness across stakeholders highlight the need for tailored education and support strategies to ensure successful implementation.
Problem Addressed
Despite a strong preference for ageing in place among older adults, integrating health smart home technologies into home care remains challenging. Key issues include ensuring intuitive functionality, protecting privacy, and clarifying the roles of caregivers and healthcare professionals in a technology-enhanced care model. This study addresses the critical gap in understanding how health smart home solutions can be effectively tailored to support the diverse needs of older adults, family caregivers, and home care nurses and support workers.
Main Findings
Stakeholders were generally optimistic about health smart home technologies supporting ageing in place and improving quality of life. Nurses and support workers highlighted the need for tailored data visualisations, alert parameters, and clear role guidelines. A novel finding was that older adults and family caregivers viewed health smart home as a way to reduce intrusive monitoring, promote independence, and maintain a familiar living environment. Family caregivers valued the ability to stay involved remotely through activity data, offering reassurance and peace of mind. Across all groups, privacy safeguards were seen as essential, with strong concerns about data security, transparent usage policies, and user control over data sharing.
Impact
Findings have implications for community-dwelling older adults, family caregivers, home care professionals, researchers, and technology developers. Insights from this study can inform the design of user-friendly health smart home technologies, shape future research, and guide tailored implementation strategies in home care settings.
Patient or Public Contribution
An advisory group of community-dwelling older adults in Western Australia provided input on study design and methodology. Their recommendations led to the use of one-on-one interviews to ensure accessibility and relevance for older adults when exploring technology readiness and smart home integration. While the advisory group did not contribute to the data itself or its analysis, their feedback shaped the method of engagement to ensure its relevance and accessibility to potential participants.
Details
- Title
- Multi Perspective Considerations for Health Smart Home: Early Phase Exploratory Study
- Authors
- Gordana Dermody (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - NursingRania Shibl - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringMingzhong Wang - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringAndy Ward - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesJudy Watson - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringKerry North - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - NursingJacqueline Blake - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringErica Mealy - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringAbigail My Koay - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringSirinthip Roomkhan - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringPhee Lep Yeoh - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringRoschelle Fritz - University of California, Davis
- Publication details
- Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol.82(1), pp.849-866
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1111/jan.16945
- ISSN
- 1365-2648; 0309-2402
- PMID
- 40172858
- Copyright note
- © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Advanced Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
- Data Availability
- The data will not be made available due to participant privacy.
- Grant note
- The work was funded by the University of the Sunshine Coast Launch partnership grant.
- Organisation Unit
- Centre for Human Factors and Systems Science; School of Business and Creative Industries; Healthy Ageing Research Cluster; School of Health - Nursing; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991119452502621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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