Enhancing worker-centred digitalisation in industrial environments: A KPI evaluation methodology

Recently, the European Commission announced Industry 5.0 as a strategic initiative toward a value-driven industrial transformation. This new paradigm coexists with previous Industry 4.0 revolution that has guided the efforts towards technology driven industrial digitalisation in the past ten years. As part of this Industry 4.0 strategies, numerous KPI-driven evaluation methods were proposed to cover the multiple pillars of smart industry assessment. However, they do not incorporate human workers and actors in a systematic way as drivers for digitalisation processes, as the new Industry 5.0 paradigm argues. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an evaluation methodology that incorporates multiple human actors in the digitalisation process. The final objective of this methodology is to evaluate the direct and indirect benefits of the technology-driven transformation process to achieve the goals of human workers and other human stakeholders. To this end, our methodology provides the basis for proposing assessment tools and instruments for technological and infrastructure integration, process optimisation, new functionalities and human factors benefits, and four core indicators that have been applied to a real case comparing the digitalisation processes of three different companies.

Evaluating IoT-Based Services to Support Patient Empowerment in Digital Home Hospitalization Services

Hospitals need to optimize patient care, as, among other factors, life expectancy has increased due to improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and medicines. Hospitalization-at-home (HaH) could increase admission efficiency, moderate costs, and reduce the demand for beds. This study aimed to provide data on the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the integration of IoT-based technology to support the remote monitoring and follow-up of patients admitted to HaH units, as well as the acceptability of IoT-based solutions in healthcare processes. The need for a reduction in the number of admission days, the percentage of admissions after discharge, and the actions of the emergency services during admission were the most relevant findings of this study. Furthermore, in terms of patient safety and trust perception, 98% of patients preferred this type of digitally-supported hospitalization model and up to 95% were very satisfied. On the professional side, the results showed a reduction in work overload and an increase in trust when the system was adopted.

Co-designing a remote rehabilitation tool for Parkinson's disease: exploratory values and challenges

BACKGROUND

Impaired motor function is one of the early symptoms shown in patients with Parkinson Disease (PD). For this reason, rehabilitative interventions have been used for many years to improve motor and non-motor symptoms. Among them, the use of music therapy has shown benefits in helping to overcome some of the most common motor dysfunction. Addressing the challenge of providing access to this type of therapy, this document presents the collaborative design process to develop a remote training support tool for PD based on music therapy.

METHODS

A qualitative study with creative co-design methods was used in which different groups of healthcare professionals, patients, and relatives participated in six iterative sessions. Workshops were designed and structured to incrementally discover requirements and needs and validate the proposed prototype ideas.

RESULTS

The study provided key aspects that were used for the development and validation of the proposed prototypes for the remote music-based training support tool for PD. Up to 20 factors that had a positive and/or negative influence on patient access to training were detected. These factors were classified into three common themes: daily activities and independence, participation in treatment and barriers to daily treatment, and self-management and personalization of information and telecommunication technologies (ICT).

CONCLUSIONS

This paper shows the results of a collaborative design process aimed at identifying the different factors, relevant to patients with PD, to improve their access to remote ICT-based training therapy and their expectations regarding alternative therapies, such as music. The participatory design methods and the iterative model used helped overcome many of the traditionally barriers that this type of technological support solutions usually have, facilitating the future participation.

Developing modular training components to support home hospital digital solutions: Results of a Delphi panel

BACKGROUND

Home hospitalization (HH) has demonstrated to be a cost-effective alternative with respect ti traditional hospitalization. Digital technologies, such as remote monitoring, have the potential to contribute to its expansion. Tailored educational content is a need to ensure patient safety during the whole admission.

PURPOSE

The objective of this study was to systematically obtain consensus on patients with HH using training in the digital monitoring system. The goal of this work was to develop an adaptable modular and personalized training program for patients to support quality and safety care for HH.

METHODS

The methodological approach for developing the proposed training content followed a modified Delphi technique with a multidisciplinary group of experts with significant knowledge of health informatics and HH protocols in Spain. The study comprised two rounds of training material description and gathering were completed. In Round 1, the experts received 58 predefined items obtained from the literature review and protocol selection. 20 items were rejected for different reasons and 25 new items were proposed. In Round 2, the experts selected the final items to build on the training content for every type of user and illness.

RESULTS

A total of 21 experts completed rounds 1 and 2. The consensus was reached at the end of Round 2 with the inclusion of 53 items to build the training material. This included 17 treatment procedures, 4 diagnosis procedures, 22 additional support content, and 10 content features that describe how to build and deliver customized training content.

CONCLUSIONS

Participants agreed on the type of content, its structure, and delivery methods to build modular training materials that support patients when they are hospitalized at home with the help of digital monitoring tools. This information can be used to create HH training programs that support new HH protocols and provide a standard for evaluating the quality of existing educational materials and programs.