Do you need spells, magic potions or wizard’s knowledge to approach the eHomeCare market in a successful way? The design and development of eHomeCare services consumes a lot of effort, time and money. Needs and value chain aspects of the eHealth(care) market are complex and sometimes unexpected factors arise during the introduction and first use of technology in the homecare setting. Take up ratios of new products and services are furthermore critical in the return on investment curve. Within this chapter we want to elaborate and share the methodology developed within the IBBT eHomeCare projects Coplintho and TranseCare, used to design and develop ICT related products and services in the homecare field. This implies putting user research up front and working with an interdisciplinary team. This chapter does not claim to offer exhaustive and theoretical knowledge on the subject, but it gives an overview of the practical insights we gained during the passed years. Often references are given for further literature study. Feedback on the subject is greatly encouraged and appreciated

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Abstract-The ultimate ambient intelligent care room environment would be able to sense the needs and preferences of the patients and nurses and adapt itself accordingly. This implies an emerging demand for the integration and exploitation of heterogeneous information available from different technologies. Nowadays, the nurse is responsible for orchestrating all these technologies, which slows down the adoption rate. In this paper, a context-aware, ambient aware and pervasive framework is proposed that tackles this integration problem by using an ontology. Rules, defined on top of this ontology, implement algorithms to optimize and automate care tasks. To increase the acceptance of the new technology, a user-driven development process is used which involves the stakeholders in every step of the design of the ontology and algorithms. To make the framework adaptable to future needs, a self-learning component is introduced that detects trends in the execution of the Rules and adapts the system accordingly.

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(1) Televic N.V. p.verhoeve@televic.com, (2) IBBT -UGent/IBCN, Belgium, 32 9 331 49 35, ann.ackaert@intec.ugent.be; (3) IBBT -VUB/SMIT, Belgium, (4) IBBT -K.U.Leuven, Belgium, (5) IBBT -UGent/MIG, Belgium, (6) IBBT -UHasselt/EDM, (7)Wit Gele Kruis VZWThe sense of making good use of ICT applications in support of the activities of the daily live (ADL) of elderly people seems all too obvious. Meanwhile time adoption of these new services and applications in the healthcare market is slow, extremely slow in comparison with other sectors. Careful and user-centered design, proof-of concept testing and intelligent value market analysis, seem not to be sufficient to continue the life of many applications after running-out of project subsidies. This chapter will describe the hands-on-experience and the lessons learned of a multi-disciplinary team in Belgium, who has elaborated from 2005 to 2009 two R&D projects in the field of eHomeCare services (respectively COPLINTHO(1) and TranseCare(2)). These projects involved research teams from different disciplines and with industrial and care organizations as project partners. The projects were co-funded by the care organizations, industrial partners and the Flemish IWT and IBBT subsidiary channels. Currently efforts are being made both by the involved companies and by the IBBT to bring some of the developed services to the market. How to cross this gap from projects to market is still a challenge in the eHomeCare area