The Relevance of Elderly Technology Users in Healthcare Knowledge Creation and Innovation: A Case Study

Knowledge management (KM) practices of Healthcare Alarm Systems (HAS, pseudo name), a technology company providing medical alarm systems to predominately elderly people living at home alone, are examined to generate insights on if and how this company gains and uses knowledge from elderly users. Data were collected through interviewing HAS employees. Major findings include that HAS had significantly under-utilized elderly users' knowledge, and this major target user group of medical alarm products is relevant to and yet largely absent from product design and development. Despite the lack of systematic approaches to capturing, disseminating, and incorporating elderly users' insights, there were incidents where elderly users had made significant contributions. Drawing from the KM and Science and Technology Studies (STS) literatures, we argue that systematic KM approaches should be in place to capture and use the expertise of these relevant but currently absent and yet knowledgeable elderly users.

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