Perspectives on Wider Integration of the Health-Assistive Smart Home

Abstract

Most older adults desire to be as independent as possible and remain living in their ancestral home as they age. Aging-in-place maximizes the independence of older adults, enhancing their wellbeing and quality of life while decreasing the financial burden of residential care costs. However, due to chronic disease, multimorbidity, and age-related changes, appropriate conditions are required to make aging-in-place possible. Remote monitoring with smart home technologies could provide the infrastructure that enables older adults to remain living independently in their own homes safely. The health-assistive smart home shows great promise, but there are challenges to integrating smart homes on a larger scale. The purpose of this discussion paper is to propose a Design Thinking (DT) process to improve the possibility of integrating a smart home for health monitoring more widely and making it more accessible to all older adults wishing to continue living independently in their ancestral homes. From a nursing perspective, we discuss the necessary stakeholder groups and describe how these stakeholders should engage to accelerate the integration of health smart homes into real-world settings.