Monitoring the Health and Movement of Quarantined COVID-19 Patients with Wearable Devices

Abstract

This study explores the requirements and possibilities of wearable devices for ensuring and supporting the home quarantine of suspected COVID-19 patients. We adopted a design science research (DSR) approach and conducted a requirement elicitation study through semi-structured interviews with 36 participants including doctors, home quarantined people and local administrative personnel. Based on the analysis of the interview data, we identified some design considerations for the proposed system. Based on these results we developed a proto- type wearable device and a cloud-server solution which we tested with regards to usability and how well the system meets our design goals. The findings suggest the proposed solution to be able to assist in the remote monitoring of the location and health condition of quarantined people, relieving work load from medical doctors as well as quarantine surveillance officials. The designed wearable device is reusable, meaning that once a patient has recovered from the disease, the same device can be used by other patient.