A Model to Define an eHealth Technological Ecosystem for Caregivers

Abstract

The ageing of world population has a direct impact on the health and care systems, as it means an increase in the number of people needing care which leads to higher care costs and the need for more resources. In this context, informal caregivers play an important role as they enable dependent persons to stay at home and thus reduce care costs. However, long-term continuous care provision has also an impact in the physical and mental health of the caregivers. Moreover, geographical barriers make it difficult for caregivers to accessing psychoeducation as a way to alleviate their problems. To support caregivers in their needs and provide specialized training, technology plays a fundamental role. The present work provides the theoretical basis for the development of a technological ecosystem focused on learning and knowledge management processes to develop and enhance the caregiving competences of formal and informal caregivers, both at home and in care environments. In particular, a platform-specific model to support the definition of the ecosystem based on Open Source software components is presented, along with a Business Model Canvas to define the business structure as part of the human elements of the technological ecosystem.

Modelling the business structure of a digital health ecosystem

“…Walls are managed by (in)formal caregivers, care managers, but also the patients and their relatives may be granted access to the tool. Next, a learning platform (Discover) provides training support to cover different knowledge needs of the (in)formal caregivers, but also information, advice, and guidance, as well as access to a community of equals and experts [13]. Finally, the third component is a dashboard which provides tools based on visual analysis to support decision-making processes from the knowledge created within the ecosystem.…”

“…Regarding the business structure, an initial approach to the ecosystem's business definition approach has been presented in [13], by the fulfilment of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) proposed by Osterwalder [15]. Osterwalder's approach has proven to be a valuable tool for describing not only commercial business models, but also in many other contexts including health-related ecosystems [16].…”

Data Exploitation Model in a Health Ecosystem to Support Formal and Informal Caregivers

“…The first layer is focused on the presentation through a unique interface, and for a consistent design and enhanced user experience (UX). The second layer, the services layer, is focused on the software components that offer a set of services to the final users of the ecosystem: an online tool that provides a private social network for patients private areas (called walls), which are managed by (in)formal caregivers and care managers; a learning platform based on Moodle to support psychoeducation processes, including knowledge needs of the informal caregivers, specialized training for formal caregivers and access to a community of equals and experts that can help them [11]; a dashboard to provide tools based on visual analysis to support decision-making processes. The third layer provides tools to centralize information needed by other components of the ecosystem.…”

“…Regarding the organizational structure, the definition of the business structure provides the base of the input streams included in the architecture, thus, it is directly linked to the business structure described in the following sections. The business structure model is based on the approach developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur [8] and is described in detail in [11]. It consists in the fulfillment of a Business Model Canvas (BMC) that describes the interrelation of nine components of a business model.…”

Dashboard Meta-Model for Knowledge Management in Technological Ecosystem: A Case Study in Healthcare

“…Technological ecosystems can combine different software components with a set of human elements, such as methodologies or management workflows. In previous works, a technological ecosystem for supporting informal caregivers has been proposed [11,12]. Among the software components, a dashboard is proposed.…”