Servitisation of Assistive Technology Delivery – A Global Solution
Assistive devices (AD) play a crucial role in supporting patients with mobility needs and aiding the care of the 1 billion people living with some form of disability, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). To better address individual needs, AD suppliers are focusing on personalizing their products. A potential paradigm shift from standard product provision to “servitisation” could help achieve this goal.
Servitisation refers to industries offering “outcomes as a service” instead of “one-off sales,” with Netflix being a prominent example. In the AD sector, servitisation would involve integrating product and service delivery through continuous remote monitoring solutions installed on devices. This would connect service and healthcare providers, manufacturers, and users, enabling the delivery of customized care tailored to individual needs.
We propose to develop a servitisation model for AD and demonstrate its application in lower-limb prosthetics use-cases. The potential impact of such an approach on services in the UK and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is significant, as demonstrated by proof-of-principle work conducted by Granat and Griffiths in two EPSRC GCRF-funded projects (EP/R014213/1 and EP/R014248/1).
The project’s objective is to create and test a system that integrates various data sources (AD device usage, real-world continuous physical behavior information, health records, and Patient-Reported Outcome Measures) and delivers insights derived from this data remotely.
Funding
University of Salford Innovation Strategy Fund
Team
Dr Laura Diment (Flinders University, Australia)
Carson Harte (Exceed Worldwide)