An Innovation Pathway for Well-Being, Aging and Health: A Croatian Case Study

Abstract

Well-being and health of aging population are becoming even greater challenges in the world population growing in size and proportion of older persons. World Health Organization claims that, by 2030, one in six people in the world will be aged 60 years or over, increasing from 1 billion to 1.4 billion. The same number will double by 2050. There is an immanent need to continuously deliver innovations for this population, taking into account not only health but also well-being aspects. Innovation pathway represents a generic framework of phases and stages common to implement innovations and accomplish their market reach, while fulfilling certain milestones on the way, starting with the need and idea, progressing through development, market entry, and eventually adoption. This paper provides an approach to optimisation of the innovation pathway to provide more precise steps and guidance for well-being, aging and health, delivering more integrative and inclusive pathway. Other contributions include the stakeholder 4P (patient, policy makers, providers and population) model, the innovation drivers and the innovation map that serve the proposed optimised innovation pathway. In order to provide guidance on the usage of such a pathway, a case study has been conducted with two examples from Croatian e-health ecosystem. Although the pathway application varies depending on the context, the proposed pathway serves as a solid starting point for further research and development.