ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Comput. Sci.
Sec. Software
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomp.2025.1527038
This article is part of the Research TopicSoftware Engineering and Intelligent SystemsView all 3 articles
Mixed-Reality-Supported Communication for Professional Home Care: System, Use, Barriers and Use Cases
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt, Wiener Neustadt, Austria
- 2UMIT TIROL – Private University for Health Sciences and Health Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria
- 3Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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The rising demand for home care services in Europe, driven by an aging population, presents challenges such as staffing shortages and resource limitations. One way to address these challenges is to increase the use of innovative digital solutions. For this reason, the 'Care about Care' project developed the digital Remote Care Assist (RCA) system to enable remote on-site support for professional home care, with a Care Expert Center web application for providing and a mixed-reality Remote Support application for Microsoft HoloLens 2 for receiving support. The solution was tested in two test centers located in Austria and Luxembourg. This paper aims to explore both the general perception and the actual interaction with the RCA system by nursing and care staff and experts in the two test centers. It also aims to identify barriers and potential use cases for successful implementation. We applied a mixed-methods approach by combining usage data measurement and focus group interviews. The results highlight the potential of RCA to improve remote consultations, with key benefits in wound care/medical issues, hands-free interaction and smooth service handovers to colleagues. Barriers were related to the device weight, handling and issues when using the device in areas with poor internet connectivity. The lack of availability of experienced staff to work in the Expert Centre has affected usage. Improved device design, centralized expertise and enhanced connectivity are essential for successful integration of RCA into home care.
Keywords: mixed-reality, Remote support, home care, Ambient Assisted Living, Usage data
Received: 12 Nov 2024; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schneider, Rameder, Kolmann and Trukeschitz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cornelia Schneider, University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt, Wiener Neustadt, Austria
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