A Flexible Toolkit for Evaluating Person-Centred Digital Health and Wellness at Scale

Citation

McGee-Lennon M, Bouamrane M, Grieve E, O’Donnell CA, O’Connor S, Agbakoba R, Devlin AM, Barry S, Bikker A, Finch T & Mair FS (2017) A Flexible Toolkit for Evaluating Person-Centred Digital Health and Wellness at Scale. In: Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol 482. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 105-118. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41652-6_11

Abstract
The Delivering Assisted Living Lifestyles at Scale (dallas) program was a large-scale, nationwide deployment of digital health and wellbeing products and services in the UK. Telehealth, telecare, mobile apps, personal health records, and assisted living technology were implemented by four large multi-stakeholder consortia and a multidimensional evaluation was carried out across the lifecycle from examining co-design and redesign of services through to rolling out services via statutory, private and consumer routes. A flexible toolkit of descriptive, process and outcome measures was developed and iteratively refined throughout the program. This approach enabled a longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation, underpinned by a robust social theory of implementation called ‘Normalization Process Theory’. There remains uncertainty about the best approaches to real world digital health evaluation. This program provided a unique opportunity to develop the knowledge base and toolkit of qualitative and quantitative methods necessary to evaluate person-centered digital health technologies deployed at scale.

Keywords
Health informatics; eHealth; Digital health; Telemedicine; Implementation; Evaluation