Identifying bottlenecks in work processes: Elderly care

Abstract

This paper investigates the challenges of elderly care from the perspective of caregivers. More concretely, we identify caregivers' workflows and pinpoint the main bottlenecks in a sheltered accommodation. As the general population is aging fast, the role of information and communication technology (ICT) has grown in importance for elderly care. This development has brought versatile ICT-related supportive systems to caregivers and laymen working with aging people. Our study first analyzed how professionals in elderly care perceived their workflow challenges. A new ICT system was developed and implemented to support their work. The results of our study inform the design of upcoming ICT systems for a sheltered accommodation that are in high demand today.