Discover how standards can improve the accessibility and usability of home healthcare products
ISO/TR 25555:2024 "Ageing societies — Accessibility and usability considerations for home healthcare products, related services and environments” was published recently.
With the increasing need for community-based integrated care to meet rapidly ageing societies, medical activities and healthcare services carried out at a home or a domestic environment have become commonplace. These activities and services referred to as "home healthcare" are provided for quality of life including independence, autonomy, safety and security for older persons.
Various types of products, medical or non-medical, and their related services and environments are being used in home healthcare. Many older persons and non-professional caregivers are users of these products. The variety of products and users can create challenges that are unseen in professional healthcare facilities.
There is much information on accessibility and usability in existing international standards and guidelines involving major products’ fields, including medical products. However, these documents do not fully cover home healthcare products, related services and environments. The problem, in particular, is that it is difficult and time consuming to locate relevant information from those design fields in order to accommodate and apply to home healthcare products.
The technical report (TR) summarizes and catalogues this information into one document for practical use. The information was obtained from existing International Standards, regional or global guidelines for products and medical equipment, and empirical feedback from home healthcare product users.
Furthermore, this document provides caregivers, care recipients and those who develop and distribute home healthcare products with information useful for:
- solving problems regarding the use of these products by caregivers and care recipients who might lack sufficient expertise and skills in handling medical products and activities, and
- solving problems regarding the use of home healthcare products outside of medical facilities.
The development group, ISO TC 314 WG 5, expects this TR will be widely used to solve accessibility and usability problems of caregivers and care recipients.
|
|
|
Usability-improved blood pressure manometer A blood pressure manometer that automates all the procedures necessary for the measurement. The user only pushes the start button to measure his/her blood pressure. |
