The COVID-19 health crisis at the beginning of 2020 saw a dramatic number of adaptations to health systems around the world. One of these adaptations was the accelerated shift towards e-health solutions. This rise happened because of the inability of the medical system to serve patients of non-respiratory related illnesses during the pandemic. This was experienced as a rise from 1% to 70% of remote general practitioners consultations in the early months of 2020(Mueller, 2020).
Key to these consultations is the use of medical devices to gather information relating to the patient's state. New medical device categories now allow people with little or no training to collect accurate information (European Commission, 2017), including by using wearables first intended for tracking activity-related metrics that are currently being fitted with state-of-the-art sensors that allow them to become a realistic alternative to strict medical devices (Raja et al., 2019). Despite this, several key issues impede their use in standard medical practice and are more commonly used as informational tools only (Raja et al., 2019).
The use of wearables as informational tools has the potential to increase the awareness of people of the effect of the things they do on their wellbeing, an essential part of the concept of preventative medicine. A concept that aims to enhance wellbeing is wellness, with health being a state of being and a goal to achieve (Stoewen, 2015).
Wellness is also a concept that is well entrenched on the product lines of the brands of Arçelik, and is seen as an important opportunity to grow medical capabilities in the products they already dominate.
This thesis project presents a service design concept that aims to help people create their own wellness journey by passively tracking habits and receiving advice based on this information. The concept is based around the gathering of information through smart home appliances, focused around four modules: nutrition, activity, sleep and vitals.
The project concludes that the proposed service solution brings the possibility to integrate the capabilities that Arçelik needs to enter the larger healthcare market while staying in the product categories that it dominates.