Construction of a Service Quality Assessment Indicator System for Home-based Rehabilitation APP for Heart Failure Patients

Background Nowadays, cardiac rehabilitation is mostly transferred from the hospital to a home environment. Mobile health applications assist patients in bridging the support gap from hospital to home environment, which encourages home-based recovery processes. Unfortunately, numerous quality difficulties accompany its promise, and the service quality of cardiac rehabilitation applications must be ＂confirmed＂ as soon as possible. Objective To develop a quality assessment indicator system for home-based rehabilitation APP services for heart failure patients, and to provide a model for standardizing and increasing the quality of mobile health APP. Methods This study was conducted from July 2022 to January 2023, using semi-structured interviews, literature review, the expert consultation method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the content of indicator system and the weight for each index. Results 2 rounds of expert consultations resulted in the effective response rates of 100%, with the authority coefficients of 0.867, and the coordination coefficients of 0.128-0.154 and 0.151-0.197 respectively (P<0.001). As a result, an assessment indicator system for home-based rehabilitation APP services for heart failure patients was developed from three dimensions: software usability, medical professionalism, and behavioral science, with 7 primary indicators, 24 secondary indicators, and 51 tertiary indicators. Conclusion The developed quality assessment indicator system for home-based rehabilitation APP services for heart failure patients is comprehensive and scientific, and can be useful for assessing and measuring the quality of heart rehabilitation APP services, as well as facilitating the benign development of similar APP services.