This document discusses scaling up assistive health innovations for people with dementia through a social innovation approach. It notes the increasing number of people with dementia worldwide and efforts to support aging in place. While assistive innovations exist, wide-scale diffusion remains difficult. The document proposes a social innovation model using open networks with shared values, knowledge, and savings to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders like people with dementia, caregivers, healthcare professionals, researchers, developers and policymakers. It provides the example of an "Ecosystem Dementia Care" initiative in the Netherlands that has established various "Communities of Practice" to better understand each other's perspectives and languages to improve diffusion of innovations through a collaborative approach.

1. Scaling up health innovations for people living with
dementia; A social innovation approach
Eveline Wouters & Ellen Verhaegh
Gent, September 23rd 2015

2. • Increase of people with dementia worldwide
• Aging in place is stimulated
• Increase in availability of assistive health innovations
• Large scale diffusion of assistive health innovations is still difficult
FACTS

3. Solving the gap between innovations and its use

4. Definition
“New ideas (products, services and models) that
simultaneously meet social needs and create new social
relationships or collaborations”
Grisolia 2015
HOW?
Social Innovation

5. Open network
• Shared values
• Shared knowledge
• Shared savings

6. • Collaboration and co-creation between stakeholders is essential
• Different expectations and assumed responsibilities however
dominate
Ecosystems are good examples of smooth collaboration
Barriers and facilitators of
diffusion of health innovations
Verhaegh, Snaphaan, Wouters, et al. 2015

8. Ecosystem Dementia Care
‘Brabantse Proeftuin Dementie’
• People living with dementia (person with dementia and/or
caregivers)
• Care professionals
• Researchers & students
• Developers & companies
• Health care policy advisors
CHALLENGE: understand each other(’s language)

9. Ecosystem Dementia Care
‘Brabantse Proeftuin Dementie’
Results
• > 150 participators/habitants are collaborating in the EDC
• 15 Communities of Practice (open, pragmatic and learning networks)
• EDC stimulate, facilitate and investigate these CoP

10. Ecosystem Dementia Care
‘Brabantse Proeftuin Dementie’
Conclusions
• shared values, shared knowledge and shared savings
• stakeholder groups need a linking pin between each other
• this linking pin has to speak several stakeholder languages

11. Thanks to
and many others…

12. Example CoP
‘Old learned, young done’
• Nursing students, entrepreneurs, clients, teachers,
researchers
• Human link technology – clients
• Advising role of young healthcare professionals –
both human solutions and technical solutions
• Bottom-up approach

13. Workshop today:
Experiencing a CoP approach

15. An innovation suitable for
dementia
You are going to know the product better now:
• Take a sheet and a pencil and visualise the product for yourself on
the paper in 15 minutes. Also, take a look through the glasses.
• You will see that in order to do that, you have to have a very precise
look at the product

16. Take another perspective
With the current knowledge and a opinion about the innovation:
• Pick a coloured card
• The colours means different roles. Each role (i.e. stake) means a
different perspective regarding to the product

17. Take another perspective
Blue: you are an entrepreneur who wants to sell this innovation to people with
dementia in a home-situation. Your product will give them rest and relaxation.
Green: You are a healthcare professional who wants to advise your clients about
what will support them in their situation.
Red: You are someone who has dementia in a relatively early phase, and/or
husband/wife of someone who suffers from dementia.
Yellow: You are an employee of a health insurance company who has to make
decisions about the purchase of health innovations.

18. Discussion
• Findings
• What makes a good collaboration between stakeholders?
• What could improve such a collaboration?

19. More information
• www.brabantseproeftuindementie.nl (Dutch)