A product-service system approach to telehealth application design

Smart product-service systems in the healthcare industry: Intelligent connected products and stakeholder communication drive digital health service adoption

Smart product-service systems (PSSs) have emerged as a solution for the ongoing digitalization of products and services, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and under social distancing. However, the conditions for smart PSS adoption remain unclear, requiring the identification of driving attributes and the interrelationships of the attributes for smart PSS implementation in the healthcare industry. This study contributes by determining the cause-effect interrelationship among smart PSS attributes and by identifying and prioritizing the criteria that drive smart PSS adoption in chronic disease management. The study constructed a five-aspect theoretical model to deepen the understanding of digital health service adoption drivers. Data were collected from 233 healthcare industry practitioners to validate the smart PSS adoption attributes. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) determined the structure of the attributes, the reliability of the criteria, and the validity of the aspects. The EFA result suggested 24 valid and reliable criteria drivers of smart PSS adoption in the healthcare industry, and they were grouped into five aspects. Following the smart PSS literature and stakeholder theory, the aspects are named digital health service adoption, intelligent connected products, stakeholder communication, environmental benefits, and use schemes. In addition, 17 practitioners treating patients with chronic conditions were interviewed to understand the interrelationships among the aspects and criteria. The fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (FDEMATEL) determined the cause-effect interrelationships based on their dependence and driving power. The FDEMATEL results indicated that intelligent connected products and stakeholder communication are the causal and focal attributes of improving digital health service adoption and providing alternative use schemes. For patients and physicians, the driving criteria include managing data, multifunctionality, data reliability, interoperability, patient communication, and resource efficiency. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Customer Discovery as the First Essential Step for Successful Health Information Technology System Development

Objectives

Customer discovery (CD) is a method to determine if there are actual customers for a product/service and what they would want before actually developing the product/service. This concept, however, is rather new to health information technology (IT) systems. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to demonstrate how to use the CD method in developing a comprehensive health IT service for patients with knee/leg pain.

Methods

We participated in a 6-week I-Corps program to perform CD, in which we interviewed 55 people in person, by phone, or by video conference within 6 weeks: 4 weeks in the United States and 2 weeks in Korea. The interviewees included orthopedic doctors, physical therapists, physical trainers, physicians, researchers, pharmacists, vendors, and patients. By analyzing the interview data, the aim was to revise our business model accordingly.

Results

Using the CD approach enabled us to understand the customer segments and identify value propositions. We concluded that a facilitating tele-rehabilitation system is needed the most and that the most suitable customer segment is early stage arthritis patients. We identified a new design concept for the customer segment. Furthermore, CD is required to identify value propositions in detail.

Conclusions

CD is crucial to determine a more desirable direction in developing health IT systems, and it can be a powerful tool to increase the potential for successful commercialization in the health IT field.

Towards a shared service centre for telemedicine: Telemedicine in Denmark, and a possible way forward

Although evidence of the effectiveness of telemedicine is accumulating, knowledge of how to make best use of telemedicine is limited. This article presents results from a multi-stakeholder project that developed a new concept, a ‘shared service centre’ for telemedicine that is envisioned as working across different telemedical initiatives to support the implementation and wider adoption of telemedicine. One year of participatory design and analysis of the shared service centre concept involved stakeholders, such as clinicians, patients, technicians, policy makers, lawyers, economists and information technology architects. More than 100 people contributed to the findings. Most of the ideas generated for potential centre support for telemedicine could be categorised under four service categories. The need for such support services was verified in the cases investigated, and by agreement among stakeholders from regional health authorities, municipalities, and general practice. Therefore, it is probable that a shared service centre could help enable the wider deployment of telemedicine.