Aging in Place Virtual Care Technology from the User Experience Perspective.

This paper reports on research being conducted under the National Research Council of Canada’s Aging in Place Program. The objective of this program is to evaluate and assist in the adaptation of assistive technologies for older adults living at home. The aims are to produce guidelines and prototypes needed to design safe, usable, and affordable aging in place technology solutions for virtual care. In preparation for this initiative, relevant findings are presented from a scoping review of the literature. Additionally, we present the framework for surveying older adults’ perspectives on their lived experiences with virtual care and digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove uptake of virtual care, particularly in critical areas such as cardiac rehabilitation. Here we discuss the target population for surveillance and describe the survey design, validation, and sampling approach that could achieve the widest range of perspectives; identify gaps, barriers, and challenges. Additionally, we explore remote usability assessment methods available for aging in place technology co-design and evaluation efforts.