Socio-technical barriers affecting large-scale deployment of AI-enabled wearable medical devices among the ageing population in China

In order to provide better health and caring services to its rapidly growing ageing population, China has turned to new digital innovations empowered by Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, e.g. wearable medical devices (WMDs). This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated socio-technical barriers and challenges affecting large-scale deployment of AI-enabled WMDs amongst Chinese old people. Nine focus groups were done to collect in-depth insights and comprehensive viewpoints respectively from Chinese families, local device providers, and public healthcare organisations. The qualitative data collected was analysed by using a thematic analysis approach. The results showed a set of 16 crucial barriers related to diverse technological, managerial, clinical, financial, legal and personal aspects. amongst these, lack of collaboration between WMD providers and public health organizations was identified to be the most critical barrier. This challenge was triggered by a range of clinical, financial, legal, managerial, and technical reasons, and would substantially prevent large-scale deployment and usage of AI-enabled wearable medical devices in the Chinese context.