Oral Presentations Abstracts: ETHICS OF HOME MONITORING DURING THE CORONA CRISIS: PROMOTING PATIENT EMPOWERMENT? LESSONS FROM THE PANDEMIC

Abstract

View of Volume 66, Special Issue, September 2021

The development and use of home monitoring or remote patient monitoring has rapidly evolved due to scaling down of face-to-face patient care during the corona pandemic. Home monitoring systems for Covid-19 as well as for other conditions are proliferating. One of the stated goals of home monitoring systems is to promote patient empowerment. However, this concept is hardly well defined and often used in a rhetorical way.

In this presentation, we will discuss the findings of our empirical study into the views of patients, healthcare professionals and policy makers regarding patient empowerment. We report on the results of two case studies of home monitoring systems in the Netherlands implemented during the corona crisis, in which we study, first, what patients, healthcare professionals and policy makers understand patient empowerment to be, and second, whether they think patient empowerment is actually promoted in these contexts. Finally, we will describe different interpretations or degrees of patient empowerment – compliant, concordant, and collaborative - and normatively argue for home monitoring systems that promote optimal patient empowerment.