Robert Rockmann

Elderly People in eHealth: Who are they?☆

Abstract eHealth initiatives are constantly evolving, supporting consumers to take active control of their health and well-being through access to health information via the Internet. Although particularly elderly people could benefit from eHealth, they often pose resistance and anxiety towards new technologies. Since modern technologies become increasingly complex, elderlys mental models on how technology works might be not supported. Todays technologies are often designed without paying attention to the circumstances of elderly people, thereby limiting the technologies’ intended effectiveness. As such it becomes apparent to understand who these ‘elderly people’ actually are and how individual characteristics shape elderlys perceptions and behavior in using eHealth. Consequently, we seek to investigate how broad personality traits (i.e. the ‘big five’) affect perceptions of elderly of being generally able to use the Internet (i.e. self-efficacy) in order to use the Internet for health-related purposes. By conducting a quantitative study among elderly people, we aim to contribute to the knowledge on relationships between personality traits and self-efficacy. We further expect to provide new insights on elderlys personality in order to design effective systems for the growing segment of older adults.

Older Adults’ Use of Online Health Information – Do They Even Try?

Online health information holds the potential to support older adults in taking active control of their health and well-being. Yet, despite generally using the Internet, many seniors do not make use of health information provided via the Internet. Understanding why older Internet users do not use online health information is consequently of high importance. Drawing on post-adoption research, a model is developed and empirically validated that examines how the interplay of health need, health knowledge, exploratory IT behavior and benefit expectations jointly accounts for seniors’ online health information use. This research contributes to the literature by focusing explicitly on older adults and by providing a better understanding how health need and health knowledge enable and inhibit online health information use.

Gesundheitsbezogene IT-Nutzung im Altersübergang – Ursachen und Auswirkungen Individueller Differenzen

Bereits heute ist unsere Gesellschaft von zunehmender Digitalisierung gepragt, welche viele Aspekte des alltaglichen Lebens und des Miteinanders verandert. Insbesondere fur die alternde Gesellschaft zeigen sich hohe Potenziale zur Unterstutzung der Lebensfuhrung, Gesundheit und des Wohlbefindens. Entsprechend ist es von groser Wichtigkeit die (gesundheitsbezogene) Technologie-Akzeptanz, sowie das Nutzungsverhalten dieser Personen besser zu verstehen – nicht zuletzt da sich diese Zielgruppe weitaus heterogener im Umgang mit Informationstechnologien (IT) verhalt, als bislang ublicherweise angenommen wurde. In diesem Kapitel werden die Forschungserkenntnisse der Autoren zur Thematik zusammenfassend dargestellt sowie Implikationen fur Praxis und Politik abgeleitet.

Towards An Application Architecture For A Smart Online Service Network Platform For The Elderly.

Abstract Online Social and Service Network Platforms for supporting elderly people with respect to their health and well-being have been discussed on the conceptual level by various authors. Here, in particular the so-called transition age between 55 and 75 is important and therefore has also been addressed, e.g. with respect to user interface (UI) requirements. As a logical next step, in this paper an application architecture for such a kind of online service network platform is proposed, designed consequently using state-of-the-art concepts like server-side JavaScript, NoSQL databases and machine learning. Since only few studies about such kind of modern software architectures exist in the literature, this is a first step towards analyzing their implications for web application development.

IT Capabilities and Organizational Utilization of Public Cloud Computing

Cloud computing (CC) as an emerging phenomenon promises multiple business-related advantages such as faster time to market, scalability, and lowered barriers to innovation. In order to achieve potential advantages from CC investments, firms must be able to utilize CC resources. Literature suggests that in order to gain advantages from IT, firms are required to possess a bundle of IT capabilities. However, until now it is not clear if these capabilities also apply for CC. Along prior IT capability research and studies on CC, this research, therefore, aims to deductively derive technical, human, and organizational capabilities related to CC. It is argued that these capabilities facilitate organizational CC usage. To test these propositions, quantitative research has been conducted among midsized ICT firms in Germany. The results demonstrate that especially capabilities of the organizational dimension, namely strategic thinking and planning, contribute to CC usage. In contrast, we found no effect of capabilities related to the human dimension (technical integration and sourcing skills of the IT staff) on CC usage. Interestingly, the flexibility of existing IT infrastructure is negatively related to the utilization of CC resources.