USER-DRIVEN APPROACH TO PROMOTE THE USE OF HEALTH AND WELLBEING TECHNOLOGY AMONG ELDERLY PEOPLE

Almost every country in Europe is tackling today the huge challenges of ageing society and ageing population. In 2012 The European Union launched the theme active ageing and the Program for Active and Healthy Ageing was published as "The European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations 2012" [1]. From the point of view of elderly people as senior citizens there is still a need for supporting elderly people's health and wellbeing through the development of new health and wellbeing technology, eHealth and especially through new digital services [2]. Digitalization is spreading rapidly reflecting on all levels of society and especially people's everyday life. The elderly people as users, clients or patients in the field of health care and social welfare should be taken actively along when technological products and new digital services are developed. There is a challenge to develop technology and digital services that enhance and make it possible to generate a new ecosystem in the health care and social welfare context to respond to the needs and expectations of the elderly people living independently in their own homes. Cities or municipalities, companies, academic institutions, and professionals from public and private healthcare and social welfare field and elderly people as end-users should cooperate to co-create better user-driven and age friendly technology and services. The purpose of the article is to describe how elderly people can be involved as active participants when new health and wellbeing technology is introduced in the health care and social welfare field. The research focus is on action research (AR) as the methodological background. Through the user-driven methods during the co-creation process the elderly people are committed in developing and using the technology, technological products and digital services. The article is based on a case study called the mHealth Booster research, development and innovation (RDI) project as the example. The aim of the mHealth Booster project was to design and produce new development environments as interactive and participative test and demonstration environments for and with the elderly people and professionals from the cities of Espoo and Vantaa in Finland. The development environments are physical spaces where different health and wellbeing technology, products and services were tested and developed together with the elderly people, the professionals, and the companies. In the mHealth booster project elderly people and professionals had an active role in the co-creation and development process. The voice of the participants is crucial in empowering the elderly people in their own life and in empowering professionals in developing their own work. In the presentation the findings of the mHealth Booster project will be described based on the phases of the action research and the role and engagement of the elderly people will be shown thorough the case study.