Hospitals or Homes: where will we be cured in the future? Design Challenges and Visions in the rapidly evolving Home Care Sector.

The healthcare sector, independent of national and international political organizations, allows people to receive medical care and assistance in specialized healthcare facilities, such as hospitals and clinics, or directly in patients’ homes. The degree of adoption of these places for care provision has proven to be unstable throughout history, being dependent on technological and societal conditions, as well as users’ needs.Globally, home care services are becoming increasingly popular due to the global pandemic experience and the rapid technological advancements, that allow home-use medical devices (HUMD) to become increasingly usable by unprofessionalized users and capable of solving progressively complex medical needs. The home care industry is evolving at a steady pace and has great potential for growth in the coming decade due to the benefits and opportunities for the users introduced by its solutions (Precedence Research, 2024). This phenomenon makes it necessary to investigate the potential of future scenarios in which home care services, such as telehealth and in-home medical assistance, could supplant other forms of care, particularly in economically and socially mature contexts.In this evolving situation, designers and decision-makers should be aware of the emerging challenges that need to be addressed to meet market requirements. This study is one of the ongoing results of a PhD research, whose main objective is to understand the role and contribution that the design discipline can bring to medical device R&D, and the recognition of its most effective approaches to achieve this purpose. The objective of the initial phase of this research was to map the principal contexts of medical device utilization. Desk research was conducted to investigate two key issues: firstly, the longevity of sanitary structure and home contexts over the long term concerning their adoption as places of care, and secondly, whether the design of medical devices for different contexts necessitates the input of different design expertise.The paper presents the findings of the first aim of this desk research, indicating that the relationship between care in healthcare facilities and home care is likely to maintain a sort of equilibrium in the long term, particularly in economically and socially mature contexts.