STARS Talks: Creating Accessible Digital Healthcare for Older Adults

Speakers: Rui Pedro, Bragança Polytechnic University, Portugal and Hans Hobbelen, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

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In Europe, an estimated 42% of people have lower health literacy, a figure that is higher among older adults, in rural areas and in groups with lower education and income. Combined with limited digital skills, this widens health inequalities and puts pressure on primary, hospital and community care.

STARS-Health is a 36-month, multi-country project (Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Spain and Czechia) that aims to move towards a more uniform integrated care system, supporting formal and informal caregivers in communicating with older adults with lower health and digital literacy. The project identifies the needs of older adults and their caregivers, reviews existing digital services, creates a special purpose mobile app so that it fits this population, and implements it together with communication training for caregivers.

In this talk, Hans Hobbelen and Rui Pedro will present the project’s rationale and approach, with a focus on the blended-care work led by the Bragança Polytechnic University, and discuss how co-creation with older adults and caregivers can make digital health tools more accessible, useful and equitable.

About STARS Talks: This format of knowledge exchange and interaction is organised by our Challenge Lab. Its monthly webinars will discuss different initiatives based on science, knowledge and innovation that can be useful or inspiring for the development of our regions. Each webinar will include a short dissertation on the chosen topic by the guest speaker, and afterwards the session will be open for dialogue and interaction.