Supporting the transition from hospital to home for premature infants using integrated mobile computing and sensor support

This paper reports on the requirements for, design of, and preliminary evaluation of a novel pervasive healthcare system for supporting the care of premature infants as they transition from hospital to home. In support of this system, we report the results of gesture sensing in a clinical setting and of interviews and focus groups with caregivers and clinicians who are involved in the postnatal transition to the home. From these results, we developed prototype systems for monitoring and tracking observations of behavioral and health-related data in the home, including a mobile phone-based capture and access system for caregivers, a sensing platform, and an activity recognition algorithm for automatically documenting infant movement. We describe the results of preliminary trials of both systems with an emphasis on the synergistic importance of bridging this transition. The results of these trials indicate that clinically relevant monitoring can be accomplished in the home, but there is still more to do to integrate these approaches into a comprehensive monitoring system for this population. © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited