through to considering the cultural differences
and observing how the platform is deployed in
different contexts. The implementation process
is flexible and is adapted according to context.
Requisites identification was the first
research goal. It was completed using personal
diaries of patients compiled during their daily
life and feedback of their care-givers, health
professionals and social workers, in addition to
the still ongoing literature review. This process
has established a set of requirements for the
technology that has helped the development
teams to adapt the ICT4Life system functionalities
and interfaces to the end-user’s needs and
preferences.
Once the first designs and architecture were
available, early feedback was gathered from real
patients, caregivers and health professionals,
using mock-ups of the interfaces in order
to address end-users’ specific needs
regarding the first version of the
technology.
At a later stage, once the
system was operational,
three main scenarios were
used for the iterative testing
phase of the platform
validation. The goal of the
whole research process is
to gather feedback from
each targeted end-user’s
profile (patients, care-givers
and health professionals),
in order to identify possible
improvements and also to develop
and was followed by a process of iterative testing
leading to the final pilot phase, all intended to
efficiently target the end-users’ needs.
Integrated care provision to Parkinson’s,
Alzheimer’s and other dementias patients
requires the active participation of:
• patients themselves, because they are the only
ones who know what it is to experience the
disease burden;
• informal and formal care-givers who provide
daily care to patients;
• social professionals who support patients and
families in their social needs;
• health professionals from different specialties
focusing on treatment diagnosis and/or
rehabilitation.
Addressing the priorities of the European
Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy
Ageing, the ICT4Life approach merged expertise
and knowledge of medical doctors, nurses, social
workers, psychologists, physiotherapists, social
scientists, and patients as well as programmers
and designers.
Research methodology
The identification of end-users’ requirements
has followed a research methodology based
on a multi-disciplinary combined approach
from computer sciences, medical and social
perspectives. A common research methodology
has been developed to collect data around the
whole project and thus provide a summary of
evidence. Key information h as been included
in a unified research book that enables the
comparison of results among different countries,
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HHE 2018 | hospitalhealthcare.com