Innovative Simulation of Health Care Services in the Usability Laboratory: Experiences from the Model for Telecare Alarm Services-project

Abstract

In Norway, a recent health reform urged municipalities to prepare for telecare alarm services to handle alarms associated to welfare technology and telecare technology in citizens’ homes. That requires a re-organisation of health and social services in many municipalities and several are preparing to establish new telecare alarm services operated in inter-municipal response centres. In this context, the research project “Model for Telecare Alarm Services” aims to study how existing telecare alarm services in Norwegian municipalities are organised and operated, and identify critical factors when designing new models for future services. This paper presents how an innovative simulation of health care services was used in the research project, when key informants from several municipalities, research partners and industry tested different models of telecare alarm services in a usability laboratory. The lessons learned by the research group showed that laboratory simulation was an efficient way of testing different scenarios of new telecare service models, together with key informants from heterogenous end-user groups.