Perceptions and values of care professionals are critical in successfully implementing technology in health care. The aim of this study was threefold: (1) to explore the main values of health care professionals, (2) to investigate the perceived influence of the technologies regarding these values, and (3) the accumulated views of care professionals with respect to the use of technology in the future. In total, 51 professionals were interviewed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied. All care professionals highly valued being able to satisfy the needs of their care recipients. Mutual inter-collegial respect and appreciation of supervisors was also highly cherished. The opportunity to work in a careful manner was another important value. Conditions for the successful implementation of technology involved reliability of the technology at hand, training with team members in the practical use of new technology, and the availability of a help desk. Views regarding the future of health care were mainly related to financial cut backs and with a lower availability of staff. Interestingly, no spontaneous thoughts about the role of new technology were part of these views. It can be concluded that professionals need support in relating technological solutions to care recipients' needs. The role of health care organisations, including technological expertise, can be crucial here.
Transitions in health care and the increasing pace at which technological innovations emerge, have led to new professional approach at the crossroads of health care and technology. In order to adequately deal with these transition processes and challenges before future professionals access the labour market, Fontys University of Applied Sciences is in a transition to combining education with interdisciplinary practice-based research. Fontys UAS is launching a new centre of expertise in Health Care and Technology, which is a new approach compared to existing educational structures. The new centre is presented as an example of how new initiatives in the field of education and research at the intersection of care and technology can be shaped.
From the publisher's website: Large groups in society, in particular people with low literacy, lack the necessary proactivity and problem-solving skills to be self-reliant. One omnipresent problem area where these skills are relevant regards filling in forms and questionnaires. These problems could be potentially alleviated by taking advantage of the possibilities of information and communication technology (ICT), for example by offering alternatives to text, interactive self-explaining scales and easily accessible background information on the questionnaires’ rationale. The goal of this paper was to present explorative design guidelines for developing interactive questionnaires for low-literate persons. The guidelines have been derived during a user-centered design process of the Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (DTTSQ), an interactive health assessment questionnaire used in physical therapy. The DTTSQ was developed to support patients with low health literacy, meaning they have problems with seeking, understanding and using health information. A decent number of guidelines have been derived and presented according to an existing, comprehensive model. Also, lessons learned were derived from including low-literate persons in the user-centered design process. The guidelines should be made available to ICT developers and, when applied properly, will contribute to the advancement of (health) literacy and empower citizens to fully participate in society
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Manual labour is an important cornerstone in manufacturing and considering human factors and ergonomics is a crucial field of action from both social and economic perspective. Diverse approaches are available in research and practice, ranging from guidelines, ergonomic assessment sheets over to digitally supported workplace design or hardware oriented support technologies like exoskeletons. However, in the end those technologies, methods and tools put the working task in focus and just aim to make manufacturing “less bad” with reducing ergonomic loads as much as possible. The proposed project “Human Centered Smart Factories: design for wellbeing for future manufacturing” wants to overcome this conventional paradigm and considers a more proactive and future oriented perspective. The underlying vision of the project is a workplace design for wellbeing that makes labor intensive manufacturing not just less bad but aims to provide positive contributions to physiological and mental health of workers. This shall be achieved through a human centered technology approach and utilizing advanced opportunities of smart industry technologies and methods within a cyber physical system setup. Finally, the goal is to develop smart, shape-changing workstations that self-adapt to the unique and personal, physical and cognitive needs of a worker. The workstations are responsive, they interact in real time, and promote dynamic activities and varying physical exertion through understanding the context of work. Consequently, the project follows a clear interdisciplinary approach and brings together disciplines like production engineering, human interaction design, creative design techniques and social impact assessment. Developments take place in an industrial scale test bed at the University of Twente but also within an industrial manufacturing factory. Through the human centered design of adaptive workplaces, the project contributes to a more inclusive and healthier society. This has also positive effects from both national (e.g. relieve of health system) as well as individual company perspective (e.g. less costs due to worker illness, higher motivation and productivity). Even more, the proposal offers new business opportunities through selling products and/or services related to the developed approach. To tap those potentials, an appropriate utilization of the results is a key concern . The involved manufacturing company van Raam will be the prototypical implementation partner and serve as critical proof of concept partner. Given their openness, connections and broad range of processes they are also an ideal role model for further manufacturing companies. ErgoS and Ergo Design are involved as methodological/technological partners that deal with industrial engineering and ergonomic design of workplace on a daily base. Thus, they are crucial to critically reflect wider applicability and innovativeness of the developed solutions. Both companies also serve as multiplicator while utilizing promising technologies and methods in their work. Universities and universities of applied sciences utilize results through scientific publications and as base for further research. They also ensure the transfer to education as an important leverage to inspire and train future engineers towards wellbeing design of workplaces.
In het FAITH consortium bundelen een groot aantal partijen uit Noord-Nederland, waar Healthy Ageing een speerpunt is, hun expertise en ervaringen op het - relatief nieuwe - gebied van frailty om te komen tot meer inzicht, praktijkgerichte kennis en een doelmatige toepassing daarvan in een gepersonaliseerde aanpak. Hanzehogeschool Groningen, NHL en Stenden Hogeschool verbinden de aan frailty gerelateerde lectoraten en de techniek lectoraten met elkaar, inclusief de betrokken onderzoekers, praktijkpartners en opleidingen. Het FAITH-consortium beoogt gezamenlijk toegepast frailty-onderzoek naar: • Gepersonaliseerde preventie, zorg en revalidatie op basis van: • Gepersonaliseerde assessment en profilering ondersteund door: • Gepersonaliseerde technologie. Voor de ontwikkeling en uitbouw van een krachtige FAITH-onderzoeksgroep worden van 2018 tot en met 2025 de randvoorwaarden verder ontwikkeld en geborgd. Dit vindt plaats door samenwerking van de FAITH-partners, waaronder (vroegtijdig) ouderen, in zes werkpakketten, die gericht zijn op: • Opstellen en evalueren van een gezamenlijk FAITH-Onderzoeksprogramma; • Deskundigheidsbevordering van onderzoekers en zorgprofessionals in een FAITH-Academy; • Borging en verbetering van de onderzoekskwaliteit in FAITH-Kwaliteit; • Borging en analyse van onderzoeksdata in een FAITH-Database met een minimale dataset van specifieke frailty-gegevens; • Disseminatie en doelmatige implementatie van onderzoeksresultaten in FAITH-Communicatie & Implementatie; • Doorwerking van frailty-onderzoek in een FAITH-Leergemeenschap.
