Issues and reality of the Living Lab approach in the Health and Autonomy sector

Abstract

With the French Patients’ Rights Act of 2002, the Health system has to be considered as a system delivering a service to the citizen. In this view, two complementary dimensions are source of tensions and changes, respectively: – The singularity of each situation, of each service recipient, which must be taken into account – The social and collective dimension of the service impact. Designing new technological solutions for health and autonomy impose to revise the methods used by the industry, integrating the new role of the patient within the health system. The report published in 2011 by the General Council of Economy about “Living Labs” opens new ways in this respect. This work has been followed by a Collective, recognized by the French institutions in November 2013 under the name of Forum LLSA. The resources of the Forum are limited to collaborative tools aimed to facilitate interactions, information, exchanges between members. These concern: good practices in open innovation; implementation of living labs teams and facilities; search for experts in animation or in legal issues (intellectual property, patient rights, etc.); strategic intelligence; design methods and tools, etc. The Living Lab approach is a reality today in the health sector, in Europa and in France. Living Labs in health and autonomy are supported by a growing number of health regional agencies and regional authorities. They refer to various methods and tools, this resulting from the history and the culture of the territory where they are implemented–and also from the profile of the leader. But they combine always, at different levels, techno-economical innovation and innovation within the health and social field. Both are reconciled at the territorial level. The Living Lab approach makes it possible to associate people right from the beginning of the design, and to capitalize on their experience. What is at stake now is to follow up the collective adoption of the proposed solutions and to measure the resulting impacts. By doing this, it will be possible to see Living Labs and their Forum LLSA as an instrument for public policies, in the field of health democracy and innovation.