A Conceptual Framework of Smart Home Context: An Empirical Investigation

Addressing the health problems of the 21st century will require individuals to use a new set of medical and public health resources that extend beyond historic and traditional medical devices and are built on current and smart information technologies. Much of these new medical tools was originally designed by device manufacturers to be used only in clinical settings and by trained healthcare professionals but recently are finding their way into the home nevertheless. Their migration to the home poses many challenges to both caregivers and care recipients. In order to facilitate their migration to the home, it is very important to first understand the domain boundary, its components and their interactions. Little research discusses the context of smart home healthcare and its surrounding entities to date. This paper aims to fill the knowledge gap by developing a framework of smart home healthcare context. To this end, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with patients and health professionals served for or by home healthcare agencies on the east coast in the United States. They analyzed the content applying thematic approach. The findings revealed four major components of the framework including person, tasks, technologies, and environments. The findings also revealed to define the interactions between these components. The findings have significant implications for smart home designers and manufacturers, and service providers.