Evaluating the Applicability and Utility of an Elderly Care Ecosystem

Abstract : The improvement of life expectancy and the decline of total fertility rate worldwide have been key factors for the increasing percentage of the elderly population in the society. Aging comes with several personal needs, which require multiple care services specially tailored (personalized) for each individual. As these needs change throughout life, current services need to adapt (evolve) to reflect new requirements. Advances on collaborative networks for elderly care suggest the integration of services from multiple providers, encouraging collaboration as a way to provide better personalized and evolutionary services. This approach requires a support system to manage the personalized and evolving services for elderly care. In this paper, we present the Elderly Care Ecosystem (ECE) framework. ECE is a system designed to support the personalization and evolution of elderly care services following the principles of collaborative networks. To show the feasibility of our approach, we developed a prototype of ECE and evaluated it empirically using the technology acceptance model. Evaluation results are then presented and discussed.