A usability study of a mobile monitoring system for congestive heart failure patients

Sensor-based monitoring of congestive heart-failure (CHF) patients living at home can improve quality of care, detect exacerbations of disease at an earlier stage and motivate the patient for better self care. This paper reports on a usability study of the ESUMS system that provides continuous measurements of heart rate, activity, upper body posture and skin temperature via a sensor belt and a smartphone as patient terminal. Five CHF patients were included in the trial, all recently discharged from hospital. The nurses experienced continuous heart rate, activity and posture monitoring as useful and objective tools that helped them in their daily assessment of patient health. They also saw the system as an important educational tool to help patients gain insight into their own condition. Three patients liked that they could have a view of their own physiological and activity data, however the smartphones used in the study turned out to be too complicated for the patients to operate. A smartphone is built to be a multi-purpose device, and this may (conceptually and practically) be incompatible with the patients' demands for ease of use.