Mutuality

Abstract

Telecare is thought to be a solution for the increasing healthcare cost of an aging population. We want to identify possible issues in telecare implementations to inform technology design. By analysing telecare literature using the Locales Framework it was found that there is a gap in telecare technology research in designing awareness or presence (known as the mutuality aspect in the Locales Framework) between the elderly and their informal carers. By designing a technology intervention on existing telecare architecture to address this gap, it is speculated that telecare can reintroduce social contact to the appropriate parties, i.e. family and friends, when professional contact with visiting nurses is replaced by technology.