Activity monitoring as a tool for person-centered care: Preliminary report

The Person-Centered Care (PCC) paradigm advocates that instead of being the passive target of a medical intervention, patients should play an active part in their care and in the decision-making process, together with clinicians. Although new mobile and wearable technologies have created a new wave of personalized health-related applications, it is still unclear how these technologies can be used in health care institutions in order to support person-centered care. In order to investigate this matter, we undertook a pilot study aimed at determining if and how activity monitoring can support person-centered care routines for patients undergoing total hip replacement surgery. This is a preliminary report describing the methodology, preliminary results, and some practical challenges. We present here an orientation-invariant, accelerometer-based activity monitoring method, especially designed to address the requirements of monitoring in-patients in a real clinical setting. We also present and discuss some practical issues related to complying with hospital requirements and collaborating with hospital staff.