Preliminary study VisaTestNytta - evaluate tests of welfare technology

Project manager Ingela Ernestam, responsible for Health and Care at Alfred Nobel Science Park, will together with Mona Jonsson, e-health strategist and Håkan Cavenius, researcher, at RISE conduct a feasibility study to identify the need for a service that ensures high quality tests in the project VisaTestNytta.

- First, we will carry out an updated analysis of the surrounding world to establish what tools and methods are available nationally today to evaluate tests. Then we intend to make a needs analysis of actors who carry out tests of welfare technology, says Ingela Ernestam.

She believes that it is important to take into account several parameters in order to evaluate the benefits of welfare technology - that not everything can be measured from an economic perspective. For example, there may be technical devices that do not save money for a municipality, but which create other values ​​such as staff and residents becoming less stressed.

Many organizations

The aim of the feasibility study is to present a needs- and market research and proposals for a service to ensure qualitative tests of welfare technology for national actors who may be interested in owning, managing and developing such a service. If there is interest, the goal is then to develop a service with several benefits together with the organization:

• To ensure that all conditions are in place to conduct tests of welfare technology
• To provide tools and methods for conducting high quality tests
• To provide research-based tools and methods for evaluating the tests - both qualitatively and quantitatively
• Reporting system that with the help of visualization delivers a clear result and recommendation on whether the organization should proceed after the test, for example by introducing some type of welfare technology within a municipality

The VisaTestNytta project runs until the end of June 2021 and is financed with half a million kronor from the innovation authority Vinnova. In addition to Alfred Nobel Science Park and RISE, a reference group with participants from Örebro University and Örebro Municipality is participating.