Seniors' Use of Health Information Technology Minitrack

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By 2050, two billion people, will be older than 60 years. Developed economies already begin facing the issues arising from fewer young people having to take care of more and more seniors and less developed countries are expected to be hit even harder in the foreseeable future (World Health Organization, 2015).

This minitrack invites papers that address the grand challenge ahead be providing insights and suggesting solutions: How can health information technology, including electronic health (eHealth) and mobile health (mHealth) be used to help to provide health related services for an increasingly elderly generation?

The continuous evolution of technology has led to a multi-faceted digitization of health care providing new possibilities for health and well-being for aging individuals and society at large. Innovation in patient-centered technological solutions, such as smartphone apps, health gadgets (smart watches etc.) and specific social media platforms indicate the increasing shift to self- initiated and self-coordinated health measures. These offerings aim to support the preservation of people’s physical, psychological, and social well-being, i.e. they enable longer autonomous living.

Although contemporary technologies aim to assist people in health-related aspects they often do not meet the specific needs and requirements of seniors. Hence, it becomes important to understand how and why elderly people interact with technology and how adequate tools and systems must be designed for this growing segment.

This minitrack is open to a broad variety of research, conceptual or empirical. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

  • Age-related digital divide in the IS discipline
  • Age-related roles and stereotypes with respect to technology
  • Specific IT/IS-adoption patterns of the elderly
  • Online and mobile health platforms and communities for seniors
  • The impact of e- and m-health, virtual communities, and social media on the well- being of seniors
  • Theories and research frameworks for investigating age-related IS phenomena
  • Methodological challenges of investigating elderly people’s technology usage
  • Impact of technology training on technology adoption and usage
  • Effective design of technology for elderly people
  • Factors influencing technology/e-health/m-health adoption and usage of seniors
  • Technology design factors influencing technology adoption and diffusion by seniors
  • Computer and Internet self-efficacy of seniors
  • Technostress of elderly people
  • Success factors, barriers and risks of technology adoption by seniors
  • Understanding of elderly people’s technology needs and requirements
  • User interface design, usability and accessibility issues
  • Integration of elderly people in the design of technology
  • Visions for future technologies for seniors
  • Meta-analyses and meta-syntheses of research on elderly people in various IS phenomena
  • Novel and innovative research on technology for seniors
  • Trust and distrust of elderly people in e- and m-health
  • Changes in personality characteristics and its impact on adoption of technology

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Heiko Gewald (Primary Contact)
Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Email: heiko.gewald@hs-neu-ulm.de

Wendy Currie
Audencia Business School, Nantes, France
Email: wcurrie@audencia.com

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Towards your Parents' Social Network Platform: Design of a User Interface for the Age of Retirement
    ( 2017-01-04) Boll, Friederike ; Brune, Philipp ; Gewald, Heiko
    Most developed countries face an aging population, leading to various challenges due to this demo-graphic change. On average, people turn from working life to retirement at the age of 65. Related changes in their social environment threat their health, i.e. due to perceived social exclusion. Online Social Networks (OSN) may help them to overcome this problem. However, usability issues due to user interfaces (UI) perceived as inconsistent and con-fusing among other reasons prevent their adoption by the elderly so far. While UI design for elderly people has been discussed in the literature, few results exist on the 'younger' transition agers be-tween 55-75. Therefore, in the present paper an approach for the design of UI for OSN specific for transition agers is presented and evaluated in a qualitative study. The results indicate that with specific, but not extraordinary UI adjustments, OSN could be made easily usable and more attractive for them.
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    Telemonitoring for Seniors with Chronic Heart Failure: Patient Self-Care, Empowerment, and Adoption Factors
    ( 2017-01-04) Jaana, Mirou ; Tamim, Haitham ; Sherrard, Heather ; Pare, Guy
    Telemonitoring (TM) represents a promising technology for the management of chronic diseases. It is of particular relevance to senior patients with heart failure (HF) condition. This study employs a longitudinal design, and involves three surveys of elderly HF patients (n=23) administered one week, three months, and six months after system adoption. The main constructs were assessed based on existing validated scales. The results show that senior patients perceived value in using TM, did not expect the technology to be difficult to use, and did not encounter barriers to adoption. The analysis of impacts on self-care revealed significant positive effects of TM on the confidence of senior patients in their self-care ability to evaluate their symptoms, address them, and evaluate the effectiveness of the measures they take. Significant positive effects were also observed on two measures of treatment implementation. TM may be leveraged to improve senior patients’ self-care skills, which will benefit their health condition.
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    Older Adults’ Use of Online Health Information – Do They Even Try?
    ( 2017-01-04) Rockmann, Robert ; Gewald, Heiko
    Online health information holds the potential to support older adults in taking active control of their health and well-being. Yet, despite generally using the Internet, many seniors do not make use of health information provided via the Internet. Understanding why older Internet users do not use online health information is consequently of high importance. Drawing on post-adoption research, a model is developed and empirically validated that examines how the interplay of health need, health knowledge, exploratory IT behavior and benefit expectations jointly accounts for seniors’ online health information use. This research contributes to the literature by focusing explicitly on older adults and by providing a better understanding how health need and health knowledge enable and inhibit online health information use.
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    Impact of Serious Games on Health and Well-being of Elderly: A Systematic Review
    ( 2017-01-04) Nguyen, Thi Thanh Hai ; Ishmatova, Diana ; Tapanainen, Tommi ; Liukkonen, Tapani N. ; Katajapuu, Niina ; Makila, Tuomas ; Luimula, Mika
    Besides their entertainment value, serious games can have beneficial therapeutic effects for elderly people that improve their health and well-being. Games are likely to be accepted by elderly persons who have enjoyed games their lives, and because there are more and more of such elderly, it is important to investigate games as a therapeutic device. This research reviewed the literature focusing on the effects of games on elderly persons in three main types of effects: physical, cognitive, and social effects. The majority of reviewed papers focused on physical and cognitive effects, and were published in recent years, which emphasizes the relative novelty of this topic and suggests that future research will need to address social impact as well. In addition, while many papers claimed positive impacts as a result of using games, our review found that more attention should be given to research designs.
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    How to Motivate Adults to Check for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) Using Three Types of Triggers
    ( 2017-01-04) Alismail, Sarah ; Bitar, Hind ; Ramani, Swati
    In the United States, about 1/3 of seniors die with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) or a related dementia. Age, family history, education, and lifestyle are some of the most important factors leading to AD among adults. This research paper investigates how to motivate adults who are 50 years or older to visit a/their primary physician regularly in order to discover AD in the early stage by the influence of three triggers. Fogg’s Behavioral Model (FBM) was used as the basis for this study. This research involved conducting semi-structured interviews in three case studies using three triggers: oral documentation, video, and a smartphone app. The findings showed that the smartphone app and the oral documentation triggers had a positive impact in motivating people to have the intention to carry out the target behavior. However, the video trigger had low impact in terms of motivating people. \
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    Elderly’s Perception about The Value of Assistive Technologies for their Daily Living: Impacting Factors and Theoretical Support
    ( 2017-01-04) Vichitvanichphong, Suchada ; Talaei-Khoei, Amir ; Kerr, Donald
    This paper presents a review of relevant studies found in a systematic search for research on the elderly’s perception about the value of assistive technologies. We found that the majority of papers did not use any theory to frame the research question or explain their results. We suggest that invariably occurs in benefits realization through the use of empowering technologies designed to provide training to help older people maintain their functional capabilities. Maintaining these functional capabilities is important for people to live independently for longer and in order to assess the benefits more quickly; we suggest researchers use the capability approach. The existing theories of adoption appear to be much more suited to supportive technologies that aid elderly in their functional disabilities. This is mainly due to the fact that the immediate benefits i.e. usefulness of these technologies can be seen more easily compared to empowering technologies.
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    Are Notifications a Challenge for Older People?: A Study Comparing Two Types of Notifications
    ( 2017-01-04) Rodríguez, Iyubanit ; Fuentes, Carolina ; Herskovic, Valeria ; Pino, José A.
    Elderly users are usually not the target of design of mobile applications, and they may have cognitive and physical difficulties. Mobile notifications may help them remember to use an application, promoting adoption and allowing them to become content providers. We developed a mobile application, QuestionReport, that asks users one question per day, and implemented two types of notifications: one that is activated at the same time each day, and one that is activated while using the smartphone. We tested both notification types with 18 users over a period of 8 days, measuring the time it took to answer the question after receiving the notification and their perceptions about each notification style. We found that the ideal time for users to receive a notification depends on their employment status and that users with low digital skills have less confidence in their abilities to use a mobile application such as QuestionReport. \
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