Evaluation of ambient assisted living interventions--which tool to choose?

This paper discusses suggested evaluation frameworks' appropriateness for a study introducing Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) interventions. Specifically, we look at how well proposals cover these dimensions: impact on society, impact on professionals, and impact on patients. We discuss three widely used approaches for such assessments: RE-AIM, MAST, and UTAUT. Our assessment showed careful selection of elements from all three models seems needed to sufficiently cover the dimensions. RE-AIM provides a broad framework; MAST adds aspects of transferability and ethics, and UTAUT adds perception of technology and future use. All these approaches lack pivotal aspects concerning inclusion of patients' or citizens' point of view in a study's planning phase. To ensure rigor and include meaningful use from citizens' perspective, we added these aspects to our study.