Can ICT Contribute to Achieve Independent Living?

Abstract

As the world population is getting older, healthcare expenditure in many countries are increased due to the fact that more people become vulnerable to various health problems. Because of this, elderly people are encouraged to live independently in their own home as long as possible. Promoting independence to elderly people will not be possible without support from society, including voluntary caretakers who took care of elderly people. Hence, it is believed that the health and wellbeing platform as an example of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could be beneficial to achieving independent living. Nevertheless, the potential impact of such a platform is relatively unknown since this type of platform is still lacking in the market. In addition, availability of such a platform does not guarantee that elderly people will gain any value from it. Therefore, this research aimed to apply the concept of the capability approach to examine why and how ICT, in particular the health and wellbeing platform, can contribute to achieve independent living of elderly people. To do so, we conducted a case study on a health and wellbeing platform in the Netherlands through secondary data analysis and interviews with potential end-users. Our findings showed that such a platform could contribute in achieveing independent living by enabling certain capabilities (find products & services, find activities, manage daily activities, stay connected with others, monitor conditions, arrange help for others) for either elderly people or voluntary caretakers. Enablements of these capabilities are influenced by variety of conversion factors, namely individual characteristics (age, health condition, technological knowledge), individual perception (perceived ease of use, expected benefits, need for technology, satisfaction level), and social contexts (recommendation from closest people & healthcare stakeholders). Our findings provide insights on how this platform could become an intervention tool to support government policies in encouraging elderly people to live independently at home. Moreover, our study also adds another perspective on how to operationalize the capability approach in the comprehensive view of elderly, ICT, and healthcare.