Mobile health in cardiac patients: An overview on experiences and challenges of stakeholders involved in daily use and development

Background Mobile health (mHealth) can improve quality of care and empower cardiac patients. However, large-scale adoption is still lacking, as several challenges continue to be encountered in daily practice. We aimed to explore the mHealth experiences and challenges in cardiac patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare managers and information and communications technology (ICT) developers. Methods A qualitative research was employed where semistructured interviews were conducted in patients, healthcare professionals, managers and ICT developers. We aimed to enrol participants of every stakeholder group, with diversity in sex, age group and occupation. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes reflecting experiences and challenges in mHealth in cardiac patients. Results In total, 24 interviews were conducted in six patients, eight healthcare professionals, five managers and five ICT developers. Monitoring/care at home was reported as important advantage of mHealth (n=20, 83%). Patients valued increase of self-care (n=6, 100%) and remote reassurance (n=6, 100%), but reported medicalisation as important concern (n=4, 67%). Healthcare professionals warned for increased data burden (n=4, 50%). Managers agreed on the importance of device reliability (n=5, 100%) and ICT developers emphasised that the goal of mHealth is to replace care, rather than being supplementary (n=4, 80%). The majority of all participants (n=22, 92%) considered future use of mHealth as promising. Conclusions All stakeholders foresee benefit of mHealth in cardiac patients, especially for remote care and reassurance. Frequently mentioned challenges included the need to replace care with mHealth, rather than adding more workload, and employing reliable devices and applications. If collaboration can be improved and group-specific challenges overcome, success of mHealth in cardiac patients can improve significantly