Analogue to Digital Telecare: Findings and Themes from a User-Centred Study to Help People Live in the Community Safely

Telecare services include personal alarms, home sensors and activity monitoring to enable people to remain safe and independent in their own home. Telecare has traditionally used analogue connectivity, however internationally, there is a shift to digital connectivity. This presents a rare opportunity to fundamentally redesign telecare, address current barriers to uptake, and help more people live in the community safely. This paper describes a user-centred study to design innovative digital telecare concepts, involving key stakeholders (a supplier, a manufacturer, 13 end users, 32 informal carers and 29 health and social care professionals). There are currently limited examples of digital telecare internationally. The main contributions of this paper are: an overview of key challenges and opportunities for telecare, not emphasised in existing literature within the context of the analogue to digital switchover; findings from user engagement activities, which identified issues that may be more important to users when designing telecare (e.g. self-concept) and less important (e.g. privacy); and the synthesis of ideas generated through the design process, which identified four themes that should prove useful to practitioners and researchers working in the field: community-based support, telecare you don’t wear or notice, expand the use of telecare, and introduce telecare earlier.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Andrea Taylor

Hugh Pizey

Craig Whittet

David Hammond

Stephen Milne

Conference

Publication date: July 2021

Publication date (Print): July 2021

Pages: 203-213

Affiliations

[0001]Glasgow School of Art

Moray, UK

[0002]Chiptech

Lancaster, UK

[0003]CENSIS

Glasgow, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2021.21

SO-VID: 0ca7c3ed-64c9-456b-99c3-9d002cae2411

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: 34th British HCI Conference

Conference acronym: HCI2021

Conference number: 34

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 20th - 21st July 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Post-pandemic HCI – Living Digitally

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2021.21

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] AKTIVE. “Advancing knowledge of telecare for independence and vitality in later life project”. Accessed 29 April 2021. https://aktive.org.uk

[2] ATHENE. “Assistive technologies for healthy living in elders: Needs assessment by ethnography”. Accessed 29 April 2021. http://atheneproject.org.uk

[3] M. Blythe, A. Monk, and K. Doughty 2005. “Socially dependable design: The challenge of ageing populations for HCI.” Interacting with Computers 17(6), 672-689. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2005.09.005

[4] Centre for Ageing Better. 2019. “Industrial challenge fund healthy ageing challenge framework”. Accessed 29 April 2021. https://www.ageing-better.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-02/Healthy-Ageing-Challenge-Framework.pdf

[5] J. Clark, and M. McGee-Lennon 2011. “A stakeholder-centred exploration of the current barriers to the uptake of home care technology in the UK.” Journal of Assistive Technologies 5(1), 12-25. doi: 10.5042/jat.2011.0097

[6] Design Council. 2005. “A study of the design process”. Accessed 29 April 2021. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20080821071137/http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Documents/About%20design/Eleven%20Lessons/PDF%20Eleven%20Lessons_complete_study.pdf

[7] FarrPoint Ltd. 2016. “International landscape review on the shift from analogue to digital in telecare”. Accessed 29 April 2021. https://telecare.digitaloffice.scot/media/58a2fc6ed39fd083f55d4182bf88826d.pdf

[8] J.D. Hallewell Haslwanter, and G. Fitzpatrick 2017. Issues in the Development of AAL Systems: What experts think. 10th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA '17), 201-208. [Cross Ref]

[9] K. Hamblin 2016. “Telecare, obtrusiveness, acceptance and use: An empirical exploration.” British Journal of Occupational Therapy 80(2), 132–138. doi:10.1177/0308022616667751

[10] B.K. Hensel, G. Demiris, and K.L. Courtney 2006. “Defining obtrusiveness in home telehealth technologies: A conceptual framework.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 13(4), 428-31. doi:10.1197/jamia.M2026

[11] K. Horton 2008. “Falls in older people: The place of telemonitoring in rehabilitation.” Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development 45(8), 1183-94.

[12] LoRa Alliance. Accessed 29 April 2021. https://lora-alliance.org/about-lorawan

[13] B. Martin, and B. Hannington 2012. Universal methods of design. Rockport Publishers

[14] S Newmanet al. 2011. “The whole System Demonstrator Programme.” Accessed 29 April 2021. https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/243066/WSD_Exec_Sum_28th_20Aug.PDF

[15] R. Procter, J. Wherton, and T. Greenhalgh 2018. “Hidden work and the challenges of scalability and sustainability in ambulatory assisted living.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 25(2):11, 1-26. doi:10.1145/3185591

[16] P. Proctor, J. Wherton, T. Greenhalgh, P. Sugarhood, M. Rouncefield, and S. Hinder 2016. “Telecare call centre work and ageing in place.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work 25(1), 79-105. doi:10.1007/s10606-015-9242-5

[17] C. Roberts, M. Mort, and C. Milligan 2012. “Calling for care: ‘Disembodied’ work, teleoperators and older people living at home.” Sociology 46(3), 490-506. doi:10.1177/0038038511422551

[18] L. Stewart, and B. McKinstry 2012. “Fear of falling and the use of telecare by older people.” British Journal of Occupational Therapy 75(7), 304-312. doi:10.4276/030802212X13418284515758

[19] A. Taylor, and S. Agamanolis 2010. “Evaluation of the user experience of a standard telecare product - the personal trigger.” 2010 Second International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine 51-56. doi:10.1109/eTELEMED.2010.15

[20] A. Taylor, L. Bernard, H. Pizey, and C. Whittet 2012. “TeleWEAR: Engaging users and suppliers of telecare in product design.” CHI ‘12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2637-2642. doi:10.1145/2212776.2223849

[21] TSA. 2017. “A digital future for technology enabled care?” Accessed 29 April 2021. https://aace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/TSA-301664-Whitepaper_Oct17-120917_ONLINE-VERSION-ONLY_0.pdf

[22] K. Turner, and M. McGee-Lennon 2013. “Advances in telecare over the past 10 years.” Smart Homecare Technology and TeleHealth 1, 21–34. doi:10.2147/SHTT.S42674

[23] Sue Yeandle. 2014. “Frail older people and their networks of support: how does telecare fit in?” Accessed 29 April 2021. https://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/download/61

[24] S. Yusif, J. Soar, and A. Hafeez-Baig 2016. “Older people, assistive technologies, and the barriers to adoption: A systematic review.” International Journal of Medical Informatics 94, 112-6. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2016.07.004

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