Team's description of the project
The challenges we are facing are ageing demographics with rising age-related illnesses, causing rising demand for service. Though preventive healthcare approaches are effective, only 3% of current healthcare solutions are from a preventive perspective. Apart from the minimal approaches, distance makes it more difficult to recruit healthcare staff in these sparsely-populated areas. Therefore, our project aims to design for elderly preventive healthcare through distance spanning solutions from a 2030 perspective.
Our group conducted two rounds of research including desktop research of existing services and technology, also user interviews with key stakeholders. Sharing learnings and insights, we found the design opportunities lie in the elderly’s motivation and accessibility.
Thus, we came up with our design concept, EnVa, a preventive healthcare system approach for the elderly, to increase the motivation in self-monitoring, reduce the threshold of technology wearables for the elderly, and strengthen the local community networks and participation; while optimising the workload for the healthcare provider, which could lead to lower overall costs.
It combines data collected from a wearable device like Oura ring with mood data collected by a conversational AI. EnVa also serves as a communication channel in instant message platforms like Whatsapp and Telegram, no app needs to be downloaded but professional health analysis and self-care suggestions are just for the elderly at any time. We also emphasise data privacy and ownership. All EnVa data services follow GDPR guidelines and the elderly can also customise the notifications and data sharing settings.
Moreover, EnVa engages not only the healthcare professionals but also the loved ones of the elderly and local community, in different touchpoints of the whole system. All the interactions are to make the elderly feel socially supported and warmly cared for, to be motivated in the self-monitoring process. In short, EnVa makes it easier to live a worry-free life and helps to prevent serious health issues.
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In the autumn of 2021 students enrolled in Emerging Designs course were given a brief to design concept for tackling problems in the healthcare system. The focus was on developing healthcare and social care in sparsely populated areas of the Nordics, visioned in 2030 with distance spanning solutions. Altogether seven concepts were created and EnVa is one of them.
During Emerging Designs course seven student teams developed conceptual solutions for developing health care and social care in the rural areas. The focus of design work was in the Nordic countries, which vision in 2030 to be the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. Here you find the students' proposals with detailed descriptions.
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