Abstract:

Every country in Europe is tackling with the huge challenges of ageing society and ageing population. Year 2012 European union launched the Program for Active and Healthy Ageing (The European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations 2012). The programme focused on elderly people´s health and wellbeing, active life and possibility to live independently at home. There is still a need for supporting elderly people´s health and wellbeing through the development of the new health and wellbeing technology, eHealth and especially through new digital services (Digital Agenda in Europe 2012). The elderly people as users in the field of health care and social welfare should be taken actively along when technological products and new digital services are developed. The challenge is to develop technology and digital services that enhance a new ecosystem in health care and social welfare to respond the needs of the elderly people.

The purpose of the presentation is to describe how elderly people are involving as active participants when new technology is taken in use. The focus of the presentation is on action research (AR) as the methodological background. Through the user-driven methods the elderly people are committed in cocreation process. The presentation is based on a case study called mHealth Booster research, development and innovation (RDI) project. The aim of the project was to design and produce new development environments for interactive and participative tests and demonstrations. Participants were the elderly people and professionals. from the cities of Espoo and Vantaa, Finland. The development environments are physical spaces where technology, products and services are tested and developed together. mHealth booster was a project funded by the European Development Fund (ESR) and the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Uusimaa Finland. The project is implemented by Laurea.

The mHealth booster project was based on an action research, Living lab methodology and user-driven methods. Action research as the methodological approach is congruent with the living lab methodology especially when the aim is to test and to develop new technological products or services and to produce new knowledge how to cocreate products and services with users in real life. The cyclic process of the action research is strongly anchored in real life. Living lab methodology and user-driven methods integrate also academic institutions in solving real life problems and support co-operative networking with working life, companies and real users. For public sector the participation in RDIprojects offers possibilities for sociatal innovations and new interventions in their service actions. In the mHealth bootser project elderly people and professionals were in an active role in the cocreation and development process. The voice of the participants is crucial in empowering the eldelry people in their own life and in empowering professionals in developeing 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 users will be shown in the context of the development environments.

Keywords:

Action Research, engagement, empowerment, elderly people, livinglab, mHealth booster, technology.