Contactless vital signs measurement along the patient journey: design for explainable AI solutions

Healthcare is facing significant challenges due to multiple factors: explosive growth in the prevalence of chronic diseases, ageing population, rising costs, and shortage of staff straining the healthcare systems of many countries worldwide. The recent pandemic further amplified these challenges and put even more extreme burdens on health systems in providing their mandated care services. At the same time, it also served as a pivotal moment to propel digital health tools to wider deployments, especially for remote care and chronic disease management. Applications, including telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, along with new emerging care models aim to place the patient at the centre of care, with emphasis on outcomes, patient experience, and the delivered value. This paper presents a user-centered design framework for integrating contactless vital signs measurement into clinical workflows. Since this technology is not yet widely deployed in standard clinical use, its use implies novel design challenges. The primary contribution is a participatory process for presenting acquired vital signs in an explainable and trustworthy way. We demonstrate this through two key use cases: emergency room intake and a telehealth app. This process enhances shared decision-making, clinician-patient communication along the patient journey, and ultimately, leading to better patient empowerment.