CERGAS Seminar "The impacts of digital transformation on the LTC sector and their implications for the skills, profiles and roles of its professionals. Insights from a multiple case study"

Digital technologies can offer tremendous opportunities to address the challenges of population ageing, helping close the gap between demand and supply of care services and better address the renewed needs of older adults. In the Long Term Care (LTC) field, prior service research literature has explored both the value-creating and the detrimental potential of technologies, frequently taking the focal point of perspective of the seniors or their informal caregivers. Yet, to date, very little attention has been paid to investigating – from the service providers’ perspective – the impacts of various digital solutions on the services, organisations and professionals of the LTC sector. Hence, we lack a firm understanding of the skills and professional roles that may be needed to support the transformation underway.

The overarching research questions guiding this study are: i) how does the digital transformation affect actors, practices, relationships and roles in the LTC sector?; and ii) with which implications for service providers (i.e., workforce skills and profiles, business models adopted, effectiveness and efficiency achieved, etc.)?

To fill extant gaps, first, we conducted a literature review and developed a conceptual framework isolating three core mechanisms through which digital transformation impacts the actors within the LTC sector: i) pooling of data, information, knowledge and content; ii) enabling/reshaping connections among value-co-creating actors; iii) augmenting agency and empowering involved actors. At a more granular level, it also identifies subsets of impacts for each stakeholder category, as well as some end-of-chain gains and detrimental effects.

Second, we established the validity and exhaustiveness of our framework by conducting qualitative empirical research involving 20 case studies wherein adopting a technological solution drove/contributed to the innovation of a given residential, home-based or semi-residential care service. For 11 of these cases, the primary data source consisted of in-depth interviews with managers and employees of service providers. Thus, fieldwork allowed us to gain a rich, detailed and contextualised understanding of the meanings attached to technology adoption, gauging professionals' subjective views about the benefits accrued, challenges met, and changes experienced by incorporating the technology in daily workflows.

Building on extant knowledge and fresh empirical evidence, our study helps to bring into sharper focus the evolutionary processes spurred by digital transformation for the LTC sector. Also, it gives concrete insights about the know-how, professionals and organisational roles needed to thrive in an ever-changing service ecosystem and trigger further technology-based innovation in the LTC sector. Finally, it uncovers some understudied issues that future research could better address.

 

Maria Vittoria Bufali is a researcher at Bocconi University and at the Government, Health and Non Profit division of SDA Bocconi School of Management. After graduating from the MSc in Economics and Management of Public Administration and International Institutions at Bocconi University, she completed her PhD in Management at the Strathclyde Business School of the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, UK).

Her research interests, teaching commitments and scientific publications focus on: outcome and economic evaluations of social and health care interventions; social, public sector and technological innovation; needs assessment; service management and (re)design, particularly in the fields of third sector, local welfare and long term care.

She has authored several scientific contributions published in international journals such as the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, the Journal of Community Psychology, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, Evaluation and Program Planning.

 

Andrea Rotolo is Associate Professor of Practice of Government, Health & Not for Profit at SDA Bocconi School of Management. He is also a contract professor at Università Bocconi, teaching Public Administration in undergraduate courses.

He has participated in and coordinated several research and executive education programs involving the leading actors of the Italian healthcare and social system, dealing with public and private (for profit and not for profit) health care and welfare organizations, regional governments, municipalities and pharmaceutical companies. Since September 2018 he has also been a Program Coordinator for the MIHMEP Master Program.

His research interests and scientific publications revolve around healthcare management, focusing on the topics of strategic planning, performance management, organization and integration between social and healthcare services and digital innovation.

He is the author of several papers published in national and international journals such as Public Management Review, BMC Health Services Research, Journal of Long-Term Care, Mecosan and Welfare Oggi. He has also contributed to various editions of Rapporto OASI, the annual report about the state-of-the-art of the Italian health care system. He is the author of the OCAP White Paper 1/2019 about digital innovation in welfare services.

He earned an MSc in Economics and Mangement of Public Administration and International Institutions at Università Bocconi in 2010.