Welfare technology and Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) in Swedish elderly care

Research problem and specific questionsIn this project we pose the following main question: what are the effects of welfare technology and digitalisation in Swedish elderly care?

We also pose a number of subquestions:How can we describe users of remote night monitoring in terms of health profile and other characteristics?What are the effects of remote night monitoring on the health of the elderly?What are the effects of Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) on workers?What role does administrative capacity play for the implementation of welfare technologies?The questions above have yet to be answered in research.

Data och methodWe will use quantitative methods to answer the research questions above.

Data will be collected from municipalities and from national registers kept at Statistics Sweden and the National Board of Health and Welfare.

Quantative studies on larger study populations are still rare within the area of welfare technologies and digitalization in public sector organizations.

Relevance and utilisationWelfare technology and digitalization have been proposed as a solutions to the challenges brought by an ageing population. The ageing population implies that both financing and recruitment to elderly care have to increase.

If welfare technology and digitalization can contribute with increased efficiency, the pressure will be diminished on both. The technology that is expected to have the largest effect on efficiency is remote night monitoring. Furthermore, in home care, digital information systems are used to register delivered time and services.

This can be a powerful tool for measuring performance and efficiency, and the information can be used to improve planning. However, increased monitoring of workers can be perceived as negative from a work environment point of view. In light of population ageing, and the increased pressure on recruitment, this can be a problem.

Plan for project realisationFour researchers are active in the project: Lovisa Persson, Karin Edmark, Gissur Erlingsson och Andreas Bergh.

Persson and Edmark will work with data from municipalities on night monitor use and the effects of Electronic Performance Monitoring on workers.

Erlingsson, Bergh and Persson will conduct a study on role of administrative capacity for the diffusion of welfare technologies. We require financing for these four researchers as well as for purchasing data.