Assessing the impact of a care innovation: telecare

Abstract The provision of health and social care for an increasing elderly population is a challenge facing many societies. Telecare, the delivery of health and social care to individuals within the home or wider community, with the support of information and communication technologies, has been advocated as an approach to reduce the rise in the number of elderly people in institutional care and to contain costs. A dynamic model is required to understand the systemic impact of telecare implementation over time. The paper cautions against overoptimistic expectations about the impact of telecare in the short term and emphasises that the benefits for healthcare systems may take a considerable time to be realised. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.