Elderly Care and Digital Services: Toward a Sustainable Sociotechnical Transition

Abstract

The elderly care system’s sustainability is one of the largest societal challenges of our time. Digitalization and the implementation of technologies in elderly care are viewed as offering possible solutions to the social and economic challenges of sustainability. This study’s objective is to examine the development, implementation, and diffusion of technologies in elderly care from a sociotechnical perspective, leaning on the concepts of sociotechnical transitions. The focus mainly is on sustainable niche development, including interactions between niches and regimes in terms of sustainable sociotechnical transitions, how niches are developed in relation to sustainability, and in which conditions and circumstances promising niches can contribute to regime change in elderly care. Through a multiple-case study in different living environments of elderly residents in Finland, we identify factors that facilitate or hinder sustainable development and the implementation and diffusion of technologies in elderly care. The three case studies concern various types of development: introduction of tablet computers in senior housing, construction of a multisensory room in a care home, and the use of a care robot in care homes and in a rehabilitation hospital. Critical factors for sustainable niche development include involving users in the development processes, as well as simultaneous development of technologies and services. The multifaceted and effective use of technologies requires time and resources. Critical factors in niche-regime interaction are, for example, factors relating to attitudes, as well as technologies’ maturity. The need to consider a wider perspective, rather than a singular disruption, is key.