Dynamic homecare service provisioning: a field test and its results

Providing IT-based care support for elderly at home is proposed as a highly promising appraoch to address the aging population problem. With the emergence of homecare application service providers, a homecare system can be seen as a linked set of services. Configuring and composing existing homecare application services to create new homecare composite applications can reduce the application development cost. The idea even looks more promising if the service provisioning is dynamic, i.e., if applications can update their behaviors with respect to the contextual changes without or with minimum manpower. Dynamic service provisioning can play an important role to accept homecare systems in practical settings. This motivated us to develop a Dynamic Homecare Service Provisioning (DHSP) platform to address the homecare context changes in an effective and efficient manner. As a proof of concept, we have developed a software prototype of our platform. The prototype was subsequently used in a real-world field test at a care institution in the Netherlands to validate the approach. This paper describes the design of the field test and reflects on the outcome of the validation experiments

Personalized Service Creation by Non-technical Users in the Homecare Domain

AbstractOne of the conditions for the successful introduction of ICT-based homecare services is to allow non-technical persons such as home nurses to personalize these services. We refer to this process of homecare service personalization as service tailoring. Service tailoring can be done by configuring and composing previously developed and deployed service building blocks. In this paper, we describe an approach that employs predefined information of care-receivers, called user profile, to hide most of the technical details from care-givers who do the service tailoring. First, we define the information to be included in a user profile and patterns that represent composition structures corresponding to common homecare tasks experienced in homecare. Then, we define how the service tailoring process can exploit information contained in the predefined user profiles. After that, we illustrate the approach with a tailoring scenario

Context Aware Middleware Architectures: Survey and Challenges

Abstract: Context aware applications, which can adapt their behaviors to changing environments, are attracting more and more attention. To simplify the complexity of developing applications, context aware middleware, which introduces context awareness into the traditional middleware, is highlighted to provide a homogeneous interface involving generic context management solutions. This paper provides a survey of state-of-the-art context aware middleware architectures proposed during the period from 2009 through 2015. First, a preliminary background, such as the principles of context, context awareness, context modelling, and context reasoning, is provided for a comprehensive understanding of context aware middleware. On this basis, an overview of eleven carefully selected middleware architectures is presented and their main features explained. Then, thorough comparisons and analysis of the presented middleware architectures are performed based on technical parameters including architectural style, context abstraction, context reasoning, scalability, fault tolerance, interoperability, service discovery, storage, security & privacy, context awareness level, and cloud-based big data analytics. The analysis shows that there is actually no context aware middleware architecture that complies with all requirements. Finally, challenges are pointed out as open issues for future work

Designing value creating and sustainable business models: An investigation of telehealthcare service ecosystem in North East England

A rising elderly population in England, together with the prevalence of long-term chronic health conditions and higher demands for social care, is creating significant challenges for both the English National Health Service (NHS), and for Local Authorities. These challenges relate to the effective planning, commissioning and provisioning of services for people with complex social and health care needs, amidst a predominantly public-funded health and care system. Digital technology innovations, such as telecare and telehealth (telehealthcare) can facilitate assisted living through technology-mediated preventions, early detections of risks, timely interventions, and self-directed care. Policymakers acknowledge the potential of these technologies to drive greater operational efficiency and cost savings by supporting the policy agenda of ‘ageing in place’, as opposed to an increasing reliance on commissioning expensive institutional provisions such as care homes. In order to realise the opportunities of technology-enabled care, policymakers have started advocating faster adoption, provisioning and implementation of telehealthcare services on an increased population scale. A review of the relevant health technology and systems literature indicates that prior and current research does not sufficiently address the business model and service perspectives, which are considered critical to the practical justification and adoption of complex health service innovations such as telehealthcare. This research study and thesis brings together two interdisciplinary and complementary theoretical frames, synthesised from the extant literature on business models and service innovation. A new theoretical framework is developed in order to examine, interrogate and explain the phenomena of value creation and value realisation within a telehealthcare service ecosystem. Conventional business model-based thinking focuses on value propositions and the financial realisation of value. In contrast, service-dominant logic offers more relational and systemic insights on value co-creation (emphasising social as well as economic factors) through stakeholders’ resource integration within the entire service ecosystem. Using the principles of Critical Realism (CR) to inform a case study approach, this qualitative study employs a multiple case-based research design, resulting in five case studies of telehealthcare services (including one pilot) in the North East of England. The analysis of empirical data collected from the case studies, including a representative sample comprising forty key-informant stakeholder interviews, combined with documentary and observational evidence, reveals four main themes. In the next stage of analysis, following a critical realist perspective, abduction and retroduction based reasoning are applied, leading to a theoretical explanation concerning the underlying structures and their causal powers (mechanisms). Three most significant causal mechanisms, namely Organisational Inertia, Fragmented Ecosystem, and Quasi-market Characteristics, have been identified to explain the stratified reality within a telehealthcare service ecosystem. This research analysis results in both theoretical, and practitioner related contributions concerning the development of a typology for telehealthcare service business models with illustrations of three archetype business models and their related elements. These archetype models signify the dynamic possibilities or potential variations of business models and new service designs contingent upon the operational contexts in which the business models are to be situated

Internet of Things (IoT) for Automated and Smart Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a recent technology paradigm that creates a global network of machines and devices that are capable of communicating with each other. Security cameras, sensors, vehicles, buildings, and software are examples of devices that can exchange data between each other. IoT is recognized as one of the most important areas of future technologies and is gaining vast recognition in a wide range of applications and fields related to smart homes and cities, military, education, hospitals, homeland security systems, transportation and autonomous connected cars, agriculture, intelligent shopping systems, and other modern technologies. This book explores the most important IoT automated and smart applications to help the reader understand the principle of using IoT in such applications