DESIGN OF A NON-INTRUSIVE HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEM TO FACILITATE PARENT-CHILD INTERACTIONS DURING HOSPITALIZATION

Health monitoring systems hold significant potential to assist healthcare professionals in patient care. However, further research is needed to explore their effectiveness in supporting caregiving and attachment practices during hospitalization, such as Kangaroo Care (KC). KC, which involves skin-to-skin contact, is widely encouraged for enhancing parent-infant bonding and improving health outcomes. Despite KC’s proven benefits, challenges such as limited staff time and inadequate infrastructure often hinder its implementation in hospital settings. This study introduces a HIPAA-compliant remote healthcare monitoring system designed to support parent-child interactions in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), with the goal of facilitating bonding practices like KC in hospitals. A proof-of-concept experiment was conducted in a controlled environment to evaluate the system's design and performance. The results demonstrated satisfactory system responsiveness and functionality, with participants expressing overall satisfaction and providing valuable feedback for further design improvements. We anticipate that this system-based approach will inspire more research on patient-caregiver dyadic interactions and contribute to the development of innovative strategies for promoting caregiver and caregiver-patient dyad behaviors that support health in hospital environments.