Launch of the project Digital transformation of health and social care: Welfare technology acceptance and knowledge among current and future healthcare and social care professionals

The basic project Digital transformation of health and social care: Welfare technology acceptance and knowledge among current and future healthcare and social care professionals (J5-4578) was launched on October 1st 2022. It is led by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Social Informatics (UL FSS CSI). Project is funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. The project partner is Angela Boškin Faculty of Health Care.

The project leader is a member of the Centre for Social Informatics at the Faculty of Social Sciences Simona Hvalič Touzery, PhD. Other project team members are Vesna Dolničar, PhD, Andraž Petrovčič, PhD, Mojca Šetinc, Lea Lebar and Gregor Čehovin, PhD. The project will last for three years.

The aim of the project is to address issues related to the acceptability of welfare technologies (WT) (t.i. telecare, telehealth and socially assistive robotics) among current and future health and social care professionals (HSCPs) from sociological point of view. The project will:

• Develop a socio-technical theoretical framework of WT acceptability that will be empirically tested.
• Explore the knowledge gap in formal university education among HSCPs and students about WT and knowledge needs regarding WT.
• Review existing measurement instruments and develop an instrument with which to measure attitudinal, technological and contextual factors that affect the acceptability of WT among current (registered nurses, social workers and social gerontologists) and future (students of nursing, social work and social gerontology) HSCPs and apply it in the first national survey.
• Examine relationships among measured factors using qualitative and quantitative data.
• Empirically validate the conceptual model of WT acceptability and prepare guidelines for (1) the deployment of WT in LTC and (2) implementing WT content in university curricula.