About the eHealth Toolbox Project

This project aims to move away from conceptual efforts to offer a hands-on eHealth assessment toolbox that can be used in practice by the relevant stakeholders in their day-to-day work. It takes into account the gaps and challenges identified in previous initiatives and aims to overcome them with the planned toolbox, adopting a co-creation methodology with the practice partners and industry experts.

In a practice-oriented style, we aim to create an eHealth assessment toolbox that they can use in their everyday practice, considering the social, organizational, and technical factors of healthcare technology assessment, adoption and implementation.

Scope

This project focuses on patient-facing eHealth tools, including self-management tools and remote eHealth solutions, rather than tools used within and between care providers (e.g., HCP video-conferences, or EHR integration), or health data analytics systems used at population level.

Methodology

Review and aggregate existing assessment criteria: By reviewing and analyzing the literature published about the topic in the last 10 years, according to the PRISMA guidelines and the Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews.

Complement potential gaps with industry experts: Through surveys and semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample where top industry experts will be chosen based on their ability to specify rich and in-depth information about the topic

Pressure-test the resulting criteria: by testing the proposed criteria that combines the literature findings with industry experts input to ensure its clarity, usability, and comprehensiveness

Finalize the eHealth assessment criteria toolbox: Generate the findings report, produce the toolbox, and disseminate the results through on-demand webinars and training workshops

Deliverables

Practice-oriented Report & Peer-reviewed Paper(s)
The study will be conducted according to rigorous scientific standards with the aim of generating practice-driven results and publishing them in a peer-reviewed journal. In addition, a complete practice-oriented report will be created to inform the stakeholders of the study outcomes.

eHealth Assessment Toolbox
A comprehensive and easy to use toolbox that helps users to assess the quality and impact of eHealth tools will be created to enable comparability and facilitate the decision making on which solution would be best for purpose (e.g., criteria definitions, prioritization, checklists, etc.).

On-demand Webinars
Depending on the chosen package, a sponsor may request an on-demand Webinar where the research team will present the study findings to a predefined number of participants and address any related questions.

Training Workshops
Depending on the chosen package, a sponsor may request a training workshop to train a predefined number of participants on how to use the toolbox, with an accredited certification from FHNW.

Timeline

Jan-Mar 2022

Define the project goals and scope, and form the multidisciplinary research team

Jan-Dec 2022

Review and aggregate existing criteria

Systematically review published literature about the topic, and conduct an in-depth analysis to create an aggregated framework that includes all the relevant existing criteria

Jun-Nov 2022

Recruit sponsors and study participants (finalize contracts, and consent forms)

Jan-Jun 2023

Complement potential gaps with industry experts

Conduct surveys and in-depth interviews with 30-40 industry experts to discuss existing criteria, and complement any potential gaps

Jul-Aug 2023

Analyze the surveys and the interviews to produce a toolbox that aggregates existing criteria with any complementary criteria that came up in the discussions with industry experts

Sep-Dec 2023

Pressure test the resulting criteria to finalize the toolbox

Pressure test the resulting toolbox with industry experts to ensure its usability and fit for purpose

Jan-Jun 2024

Produce the final report, disseminating the results, conducting Webinars and Training Workshops

Project Lead

Dr. Christine Jacob

Healthcare Technology Expert
Digital Health Strategist

With over 20 years of industry experience, Christine is a seasoned healthcare executive that held several leading international positions in major Pharma companies. Her career encompassed several Digital Strategy roles, where her aim was to help her stakeholders to adopt creative and innovative user engagement strategies, successfully connecting with their key customers to create relevant and sustainable digital health solutions and implementation strategies. She also acts as a senior business consultant and strategy advisor to several major players in the healthcare industry, in addition to her work with Digital Health start-ups.

Her research work focuses on Healthcare Technology adoption and implementation, looking into the social, organisational, and technical factors impacting user acceptance of novel digital health tools. She led several research projects involving Pharma, digital health start-ups, and diverse clinics and hospitals across Europe.

Click here to connect with her, and here for publications

Research Team

Dr. Johan Lindeque

Strategy & Methodology Expert Business Strategist

Roman Müller

Research associate empirical economic and social research

Prof. Dr. Sabina Heuss

Healthcare Communications Expert Co-Head Focus Healthcare Team

Prof. Dr. Marc K. Peter

Head of Competence Center Digital Transformation

Practice Partners

Alexander Klein

Group Leader Digital Health, Personalised Healthcare Center of Excellence, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

Thomas Metcalfe

Cluster lead PHC Ecosystem, Personalized Healthcare Center of Excellence, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

Roland Bosshard

CIO and Member of the Management Board, KPT

Funding

This project is jointly sponsored by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd as a platinum practice partner, KPT insurance as a gold practice partner, and Innosuisse (the Swiss Innovation Agency, grant number 104.445 IP-ICT).

Contact

For any inquiries related to this project, please get in touch with the project lead, Dr. Christine Jacob