| dc.description.abstract | Major changes in the healthcare sector are coming within the following years. The healthcare sector faces challenges such as the aging of the population, more advanced therapies, the effect of changing consumption patterns on the health of people and the growing demands of the patient (Ministery of VWS, 2014; RANJ, 2015). This affects the accessibility, quality and affordability of care. If proceeded like this, care becomes unaffordable, a proposed solution is eHealth. eHealth is the application of ICT (Information and communications technology) in healthcare. For this research G4H (Games for health) is used as a case. G4H are games which besides being entertaining also serves a serious goal within a healthcare context. The implementation of eHealth is believed to cause a paradigm shift in the way the Dutch healthcare sector is organized. However, a new paradigm represents discontinuities in trajectories of progress which are defined within earlier paradigms (Christensen & Rosenbloom, 1995). The process of a paradigm shift brings disruption of the current paradigm. In order to analyze the context which is disrupted, the value network is used. The value network is the context through which a disruptive innovation acquires value. The actors within this system depict the value which an innovation can acquire. Furthermore, the implementation of G4H can be seen as the measure in which G4H fits to the value network or in which it is disrupted. This leads to the following research question: “What are the hurdles and chances in the current value network for games for health in the Dutch healthcare system?”. The answer is sought for in a qualitative explorative method, by interviewing seventeen respondents. The interviews and additional data are coded and analyzed to arrive at an answer on the research question. The implementation of G4H and eHealth causes a change in the position of some actors in the value network. The chances lie with the offer of a more efficient and effective manner of curing, caring and keeping healthy. The actors in the system acknowledge this and are willing to adopt the innovation. However, the manner in which the system is organized poses hurdles. This in the fact that the current value network is organized as a tight knit system which is reluctant to change. Furthermore, there are multiple actors who provide a deciding factor in implementation of G4H. Last, there is a need for validation of effectiveness and efficiency in order to acquire value. So G4H, as well as eHealth, has the choice to either adopt to the current value network or strive to change it and by doing so disrupt the Dutch healthcare sector. | |
