Research
QUEST: The acceptability of using technologies in the home to monitor health and wellbeing – a qualitative study
Health care systems are under pressure due to people living longer, more people living with multiple long-term health conditions and a lack of resources (financial and staff). As a result, these systems are busy and tend to react to health problems once they have already happened rather than trying to prevent them. People using health services can face problems in getting access to services and may have to do a lot of ‘work’ to manage their health such as going to healthcare appointments or monitoring health at home. Technologies could help with these things.
There are currently some technologies available to help people monitor their health, such as watches that monitor heart rate. However, many of the technologies we have today can be expensive, get in the way, or be uncomfortable and difficult to use. In the future, installing newly developed technologies in the home may help to monitor health more easily.
‘The Quantum-Inspired Imaging for Remote Monitoring of Health and Disease in Community Health Care’ or ‘QUEST’ study, is based at the University of Glasgow and is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The aim of QUEST is to develop new technologies and devices to be installed in the home, which can be used to remotely monitor people’s health. For example, blood flow, heart rate, movement and possibly brain activity using technology such as lasers, WiFi and radar. Read more about QUEST.
As part of the QUEST study, we wanted to find out the views and experiences of members of the public (adults over the age of 18) and health professionals, about the technologies we are developing. We wanted to find out how acceptable the technologies are to people and what they thought would be the benefits and risks. We carried out focus groups and interviews and are currently analysing the data we collected. Please check back for updates on our results.
The team
- Professor Frances Mair, Norie Miller Professor of General Practice
- Professor Terry Quinn, Professor in Cardiovascular Ageing
- Dr Katie Gallacher, Senior Clinical Research Fellow
- Ms Karen Wood, Research Associate
Contact for further information
Karen Wood (email: karen.wood@glasgow.ac.uk , or telephone: 0141 330 2816)