Supplementary Material for: What Is the Real-life Experience of Older Adults on Smart Healthcare Technologies? An Exploratory Interview Study

Introduction: Smart healthcare technologies exhibit the great potential to support older Hong Kong adults with their health problems. Although there are various smart healthcare technologies in the Hong Kong market, and some adoption predictors have been proposed and investigated, little is known about older users’ views on and real-life experiences with these technologies. This exploratory study examined the experiences, functional needs and barriers of three kinds of smart healthcare technology (i.e., smart wearable devices, smart health monitors, and healthcare applications) with older adults in real-life.
Methods: A convenience sampling method was applied to recruit twenty-two older adults from the Hong Kong community. The interview was designed in semi-structured and conducted in a face-to-face setting. The content analysis was used to summarize the older adults’ functional needs and barriers in real-life.
Results: We found older adults mainly applied SHCTs to address physical health, but there are few technological solutions for mental health in practice. There are four types of barriers in using smart healthcare technology. However, social support in Hong Kong community greatly help to reduce the barriers in technology use. Based on the findings, we discussed the possible solutions based on the social and technology perspective.
Conclusion: Current technologies still could not fully address older adults needs for healthy aging and various barriers still hinder the actual adoption. By deeply understanding and considering the social context, technology innovation can facilitate the adoption of smart healthcare technology and promote a healthy aging society.

引言：智能医疗技术展现出巨大的潜力，用以支撑香港老年人应对其健康问题。尽管香港市场上存在多种智能医疗技术，且已有一些采纳预测因素被提出并研究，但对于老年人对这些技术的看法以及实际使用体验的了解仍然有限。本项探索性研究旨在探讨老年人实际生活中对三种智能医疗技术（即智能可穿戴设备、智能健康监测器和医疗应用）的使用体验、功能性需求及障碍。方法：采用便利抽样法从香港社区招募了二十二位老年人。访谈以半结构化形式设计，并在面对面环境中进行。内容分析法被用于总结老年人实际生活中的功能性需求及障碍。结果：我们发现老年人主要应用智能医疗技术来解决身体健康问题，但在实际中针对心理健康的技术解决方案却寥寥无几。使用智能医疗技术存在四种类型的障碍。然而，香港社区中的社会支持在很大程度上有助于减少技术使用的障碍。基于这些发现，我们从社会和技术视角讨论了可能的解决方案。结论：当前技术仍无法完全满足老年人健康老龄化需求，且各种障碍仍然阻碍了技术的实际采纳。通过深入理解和考虑社会背景，技术创新可以促进智能医疗技术的采纳，并推动健康老龄化社会的形成。