Summary
Objectives: Medical telecare services’ designing and redesigning still remains a challenging
issue since it often depends on how a number of socio-technological issues are framed.
This work has two key objectives; the former is to theoretically analyze the nature
of a telecare environment by developing a model that reveals potential areas of analysis
and the latter is to support designing and redesigning medical telecare services by
formulating a strategy as well as a number of “state of the art” guidelines.
Methods: We have extended Leavitt’s diamond to develop a model capable of accurately reflecting
the telecare environment building dimensions as well as their interactions. This model
depends on the i) technology, ii) collaborators, iii) tasks, iv) structure, v) social
forces, and the vi) procedure dimensions. Taking this model as a core element we have
proposed a service designing and redesigning strategy formulating, in parallel, six
scalable dimension-oriented guidelines.
Result: During the two-year period (2003-2005) an enormous amount of data was collected (by
active participating in two EU projects, by conducting semistructured interviews,
by performing onsite observations as well as by reviewing 78 previous projects) and
classified, structuring six guidelines. These guidelines can be considered as the
“state of the art” to support future services’ design and redesign.
Conclusions: This work considering the telecare environment as a multi-dimensional, operational
organization has put the focus on accurate telecare services’ design and redesign.
The parameters are not limited, by any means, and are drawn from experience of designing
services in a variety of telecare domains. The optimal parameter combination must
be chosen according to the aim of each telecare procedure. Further research is needed
to determine the minimum parameters to support telecare service design.
Keywords
Telecare environment analysis - Leavitt’s diamond - telemedicine - guidelines - telecare
service design - conceptual tool - feedback tool