Innovation and evaluation: taming and unleashing telecare technology

Telecare is advocated in most European countries with great, if not grandiose, promises: improving healthcare, lowering costs, solving workforce shortage. This paper does not so much question these specific promises, but rather the 'register of promising' as such, by comparing the promises with actual processes of incorporating technologies in healthcare practices. The case we study is the use of webcams in follow-up care from a Dutch rehabilitation clinic for people with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This process shows many changes and contingencies, and corresponding shifts in goals and aims. The conclusion is that when innovative technologies such as telecare are actually put to work, 'the same' technology will perform differently. In order to function at all, technology has to be tamed, it has to be tinkered with to fit the practices of the users. The technology, however, is not meekly put to use (tamed), but is unleashed as well, affecting care practices in unforeseen ways. The untenability of pre-given promises and the fluidity of locally evolving goals has important implications for the way in which innovations are promoted, as well as for the way innovative technologies may be evaluated.