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EJEG
Volume 7 Issue 2
Developing Telehealthcare Systems in Complex Multi-Agency Service Settings: the OLDES Project
Gregory Maniatopoulos1, Ian McLoughlin2, Rob Wilson1 and Mike Martin1
1Newcastle University, UK
2Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
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Recent developments in internet and related digital technologies offer increasing possibilities for transforming the delivery of care by virtual means. Both medical, healthcare professional groups as well as potential patients are encouraged to make more and better use of the opportunities offered by digital technologies to provide health and social care services by virtual means. However, the care of older people presents challenges and issues at many levels. The realities of the world of older people and of the multiple institutions and agencies that provide care services for them have to be better understood if virtual services are to be configured appropriately. This paper presents the early results of an ongoing action research intervention in a virtual healthcare project. Our intervention in the project has been based on the principles of socio-technical systems design and in particular the concept of co-production. The intervention is intended to facilitate the development of a system that more purposively fits the everyday practices and needs of older people and the agencies and institutions that provide care services for them. This activity is supported by the deployment of a ‘demonstrator’ tool that supports stakeholders in visualising different socio-technical scenarios for the configuration of virtual services. We suggest that this tool can support processes of shared sense making amongst care agencies and institutions. In so doing, it can provide the basis for facilitating more effective ’user’ engagement with the design, development and implementation of virtual healthcare systems.
Keywords:
socio-technical systems design, telehealthcare, systems architecture
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