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Evaluating E-Health: How do you go about it?

In practice and in science, there is still much ambiguity about how to properly evaluate eHealth. Especially when the technology (underlying the eHealth application) is still in development. Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) has years of experience in guiding such developmental processes, including the evaluation of innovative eHealth technologies. Under the leadership of senior researcher Stephanie Jansen - Kostering, RRD has developed its own method for eHealth evaluations and published it in Digital Health.

Continuous evaluation of eHealth

RRD's approach is characterized by the continuous evaluation of eHealth starting from the maturity of the technology with attention to different perspectives. These perspectives are; the user perspective, the clinical perspective and the societal perspective. The maturity of the technology is determined by the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). The 9 TRL levels (TRL 1 = low and TRL 9 = high) can be distinguished into three phases; TRL 1 to 3 is the research phase, TRL 4 to 6 is the development phase and TRL 7 to 9 is the implementation phase. In the research phase, for example, the user perspective is central and formative user testing in a laboratory is important to have a good alignment between the user and the technology. The paper gives several examples of studies in the different TRL phases.

Method of e-Health Evaluation

The RRD methodology for e-Health evaluation is published in Digital Health. Interested? Read the publication here: "Time to act mature - Gearing eHealth evaluations toward technology readiness levels"

Are you or will you be conducting an evaluation study of an e-Health application?

RRD is happy to think along with you. You can contact us for advice and/or to conduct evaluation studies.

For questions about evaluation studies, please contact Sr. researcher Stephanie Jansen - Kosterink (s.jansen@rrd.nl - 0880 875 717).

07/21/2022

PhD Defence of Marian Hurmuz: eHealth - in or out of our daily lives?

While there are many different eHealth services (being) developed, its use among the target population is still low. Marian Hurmuz aimed within her PhD to increase our understanding about the (non-)use of eHealth services among the target population in a real-world setting. After a bit more than 3 years, she finalised her PhD thesis and, last week Thursday, she had her PhD defence.

Her thesis is available online on our website here. The studies described within this thesis cover the following topics:

Exploring demographics and personality traits of older adults which can predict dropping out of an eHealth service.
Investigating which determinants of the Technology Acceptance Model explain older adults' use and intention to continue using a gamified eHealth service.
A case study which shows how you can evaluate an eHealth service in a real-world setting with mixed methods.
Qualitatively investigating barriers and facilitators adults with neck and/or low back pain perceive when using an mHealth app.
Identifying the reasons of potential end-users to participate in eHealth studies, the influence of these reasons on the use of eHealth, and their expectations about these studies.

This thesis ends with a general discussion about the main findings. This discusses the use of eHealth and the intensity of use among different eHealth services, the different aspects which can be used to measure eHealth use, how eHealth use can be improved, recommendations on improving summative eHealth evaluations, and finally it discusses topics for future studies.

We are very proud of Marian that she completed her work at RRD in this fantastic way. In recent years she has done a lot of work in various European projects and we are grateful for that.

With the ends of her PhD, we are looking forward to see how she will go on working on this important topic!

06/23/2022

Festive farewell to Hermie Hermens: Twente pioneer in care innovation

On April 1, Roessingh Research and Development (RRD), together with many (former) RRD staff members and other colleagues from the Roessingh group, inaugurated the retirement of Hermie Hermens. Hermie was (together with Gerrit Zilvold) one of the founders of RRD and has since its inception been one of the pillars on which the current success of RRD is built.

In all these years, Hermie has contributed to leading research in various fields (from electromyography to serious gaming, and from prosthetics to clinical decision support systems).

It is thanks to Hermie that RRD is a well-known player within the European innovation landscape; he has also put RRD on the map at the local level, for example through his appointment as professor in the Biomedical Signals & Systems group at the University of Twente, and as co-founder of organizations such as Vitaal Twente and the Technology and Care Academy. The fact that everyone in Twente involved with healthcare technology knows who Hermie is shows how great the impact of his work has been and how closely he has been linked to the region.

His farewell was centered on the things Hermie has always attached great importance to: interest in your colleagues, good food, and star wars. For the time being, Hermie will remain connected to the University of Twente for a few days a week.

04/20/2022