Today, circular economy is becoming more and more important to think about when developing new solutions, and considering the growing and aging population it may be extra important when it comes to the design of solutions for health care. This thesis aims at exploring how a digital health technology solution for incontinence care can be designed to contribute to a circular economy. In order to achieve the aim, a case study is performed with the intention to answer four different research questions. To gather data and information, the study also uses methods such as interviews, surveys, and a literature study. The first conclusion that can be drawn is that there are eight different circular design strategy categories, each category with a unique focus area, that are assessed to be suitable to investigate for the given purpose. Three examples of focus areas of these categories are to reuse resources, to influence the user behaviour, and to prolong the use phase for a solution somehow. Furthermore, the users and the production company are seen as the most significant actors for the studied digital health technology solution, and together they have ten important requests including needs regarding provision of knowledge, easily understandable solutions, and peace of mind to mention some. Based on the conclusions regarding circular design strategies and important requests, three concepts are developed which in different ways are assessed to contribute to both circularity and to fulfilling actor requests. One of the concepts focuses on prolonging the use of some components by providing an adapted cleaning kit to keep the components at a high hygienic standard. Another concept focuses on encouraging correct usage of the whole solution through giving the users personal statistics and notifications related to monetary and environmental costs. The last concept aims at providing a simple way to return reusable components to the company in order to enable reuse by another user. Finally, conclusions regarding positive and negative aspects of the three developed concepts are presented, focusing on attributes such as circularity and value creation. The thesis presents different ways regarding how circular design strategies can be applied to a digital health technology solution, which can inspire and aid organisations in their way towards providing solutions that are adapted to fit a circular economy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-177142 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Larsson, Linnea, Nilsson, Linnéa |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Industriell miljöteknik, Linköpings universitet, Industriell miljöteknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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