mCare – Mobile technologies to improve home health care

The focus of the project M-HealthCare is to analyze how mobile devices improve the internal processes and the services offered by home health agencies and how to bring these agencies into the integrated care. Besides showing the potential of mobile devices, discussing the risks and disadvantages that come with them are also part of this project. The results of this research project should support home health agencies in their decision to use a mobile device in the future.

Project description

The costs of health care in Germany have been rising constantly for many years. The reasons are higher medical costs as well as demographic change. The increasing number of elderly people that are in need of care, financially burden the public health system. At the same time the patients are asking for higher quality and more transparency in their treatment. With the constantly rising number of people that are in need of care combined with budget constraints, home health agencies have reached their limits. Furthermore, the competitive pressure is rising due to competing health care organizations and caregivers that work on the black market.

To succeed in the market, home health agencies must optimize their internal processes in order to apply their resources more efficiently and to convince customers with quality. This process optimization together with higher quality service is achievable using mobile devices and the proper software.

Receiving information independent of time and place is especially important in healthcare organizations where the most of the employees' time is spent working mobile. Nurses could for example exchange patients' records with the home health agencies office and react more quickly to changes in the service schedule. Another advantage is the facilitation of the documentation that plays a very important role in the field of care. The improved process organization and supply of information help the home health agencies to increase their quality of care.

Many providers of software for healthcare organizations offer a mobile component. However the usage of mobile devices is not yet common for home care agencies. One important reason is the lack of knowledge which concrete value mobile devices could add and if the costs for the hardware and software would pay-off.

In the context of digitalizing patient records the possibility of exchanging data between home health agencies and other care providers like hospitals and doctors should be also considered. Here the integrated care, which aims at improving the treatment quality together with lowering treatment expenses, plays an important role. That‘s why another focus of this research project is the optimal integration of home health agencies into integrated care. In addition to the analysis of the potential of integrated care, ways on how to implement the integration of home care agencies will be considered.

• Design of a tool to measure the potential of mobile devices for process and service optimization.
• Analyze software for health care organization and define the requirements of the home care agencies towards the software.
• Definition of key figures to evaluate the usage of mobile devices.
• Analyze the factors that influence the acceptance of mobile devices and find solutions to improve the acceptance.
• Define approaches on how to integrate home care agencies and home health agencies into the integrated care.

• Process optimization
• Quality management
• Acceptance
• Mobile Learning

• Ruehlicke, Joerg: Einfluss von Uebertragungsstandards und der Leistungsfaehigkeit von mobilen Endgeraeten auf deren Nutzung in kleinen und mittelstaendischen Unternehmen. Diplomarbeit, 2008.
• Karlica, Dijana: Serviceoptimierung durch den Einsatz mobiler Endgeraete in ambulanten Pflegediensten. Diplomarbeit, 2008.
• Geistmann, Michaela; Wiessner, Sandro: Analyse bestehender Software fuer ambulante Pflegedienste. Projektarbeit 2008.
• John, Andreas; Zell, Michael: Mehrwert von mobilen Endgeraeten fuer ambulante Pflegedienste und Ansprueche des Pflegepersonals an die Hard- und Software. Projektarbeit 2008.
• Driessen, Sebastian; Gubanov, Ilija; Kapar, Uelkuehan; Wang, Song: Mehrwert von mobilen Endgeraeten fuer Patienten und Untersuchung von Hemmnissen und Risiken bei der Nutzung durch ambulante Pflegedienste. Projektarbeit 2008.
• Soeldner, Constantin; Memmel, Sarah: Anbindung ambulanter Pflegedienste an die integrierte Versorgung. Projektarbeit 2008.
• Dalmaczynski, Simone; Schirakowski, Philipp: Mobile Learning im Gesundheitswesen. Projektarbeit 2008.

Related Student Reports (excerpt)