Proposed Business Model
Discuss about the Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
Old age can become a very challenging phase of the life of an individual. The bed ridden patients are affected the most as it put them in both physical and mental trauma. Such patients have very high amount of risk to develop pressure ulcers and are prone to long-term illness. The patient’s family or loved ones are unable to find proper care to deal with problem due to lack of expertise. Therefore, it becomes quite impossible for the patients to recover soon. The elderly people cannot move from their beds easily.
It is highly significant to keep them socially and mentally engaged to avoid bed sores or pressure ulcers, depression and troubled sleep. Therefore, a business idea has been generated to create smart bed for the prevention of pressure ulcers in the patients (Klang, Wallnöfer & Hacklin, 2014). Pressure ulcers are caused due to the obstruction of blood flows to the soft tissues. This causes localized injuries to the skin and its underlying tissue. The most common area are skin overlying the hips, sacrum, heels and coccyx.
In the recent scenario, smart bed would prove to be more beneficial than the other available treatments products present in the market. The smart bed would be capable of manipulating the patient’s body without being assisted by the care giver. Rather than individual mattresses, application of rectangular mattress will help in reducing the overall cost. Improvement in technology would help the patients to stay safe with the new ‘smart beds’ (Bocken et al., 2104). With the help of smart beds the safety of the patients will increase and lead to early recovery. Throughout the lengthy hospital stay, smart beds would be able to provide the patients maximum comfort and satisfaction.
Pressure ulcers or Decubitus ulcers that are generally known as bed sores are potential serious problems faced by the bed ridden patients. Staff or nurses are frequently needed to turn over their patients lying in the bed. As the sores are mostly caused due to prolonged pressure on the skin and lying on the same spot for too long. Smart beds automatically turn its patient over to prevent them from developing ulcers. Smart beds help in improving the efficiency of the patients.
Proposing smart beds business can be very fruitful due to its various positive outcomes or advantages. Smart beds will help in keeping the track of the patients with the help of its remote monitoring system. Smart hospital beds includes sensor that is used to ascertain the heartbeat, body temperature, oxygen, blood and pressure of the bed ridden patients. This effective system is itself attached to the smart bed and transfers all the signals directly to the supervisors. This further enables the health supervisors to monitors and reviews the patient’s condition instantly Schaltegger, Hansen & Lüdeke-Freund, 2016).
Critical Success Factors to be Controlled while Implementing Ideas
A smart bed imitates the patient’s movements during their sleep. If the patients sleep too long in the same position, then they are gently moved. A special mattress is used on a “joint-less but flexible slatted frame”. The smart bed frame is made of high quality and smart material, that can be easily adjusted, when required (Souto, 2015). Turning the patients very often, especially the larger ones can be very difficult for the nurses. With the help of smart beds, the patients are turned over and thus save employee costs.
Smart beds have the intelligent, touch-free and connected monitoring system that can easily operates in any setting. The work details, simulation, design and experimental testing of the actuated beds are made to provide maximum comfort to the bed ridden patients. Smart beds are created to improve the patients ‘turning’ process that are mostly performed by the staffs or health caretakers. Ulcers of all kind can be easily prevented for the bed-ridden patients. Although the bed sores are developed in the patients due to factors like age, skin moisture and nutrition but Pressure ulcers are caused due to spinal cord injury, immobility and various other illnesses (Foss & Saebi, 2017). The most common practices to prevent such type of Ulcers are to turn the patients physically after every two hours. More than 66% of patients are failed to avail this services due to lack of well- trained labor shortages. Smart beds business ideas will crucially reduce the labor, time as well as the cost of the treatment (Carayannis, Sindakis & Walter, 2015. Moreover, the bedridden patients can also recover as soon as possible from the proposed idea. The scope and objectives of the proposed business plan are as follows:
- To improve the existing smart hospital bed system.
- To create highest quality of smart beds in relation to its price.
- To manufacture prototype for bed alterations
- To support and ascertain the quality of smart hospital bed (DaSilva & Trkman, 2014)
The hard ware for the smart hospital beds constitutes of motor, coupling, spherical joints, linear actuators, battery and microcontroller. Smart beds ideas that are proposed for the business has features and designs better than the currently available products. It includes an actuating mechanism that is capable of turning the patients’ bodies without the help or assistance of a caregiver. This techniques proposed will eliminates the requirement for assisting the patients. Smart beds are tools designed to reduce the labor intensive and the consuming tasks of the health care workers. The hardware design and its enhanced features complete the overall functioning of the system (Metallo et al., 2018).
The model is used to identify the control equations that enables the plate follow a desired operational space trajectories. While implementing the idea, it is important to apply control system of smart beds in simulation to the mechanical devices for better results. The motors installed in the beds should high-teach and well equipped to easily move the patients’ position from time to time. The smart bed should offer both mobility and massage offers to the patients through its ‘vibration and percussion’ features (Tukker, 2015). Besides eliminating the application of three motors to control the mattress only two motors can be installed. The number of motors and rod that are to be used in the beds should be reduced for maximum result. Through high torque motors, the problem of lifting over weight patients can be reduced. Wound electronic media record (WEMR) is a vital tool to synthesize the information needed to control patients with pressure ulcers. The system helps in capturing all crucial information on a single page and thus adequate medical decisions can be easily made (Palattella et al., 2104).
References
The market of smart beds is in its introductory stage and is further expected to create a positive impact. With the increase of smart beds commercialization, the market demand can increase at a rapid rate (Joyce & Paquin, 2016). Rise in healthcare expenditure and increasing ageing population, smart-bed business can increase considerably. There are generally high demands for smart beds in the Asia Pacific regions. In the near future, improvements can be made in the business idea by providing smart beds that provides the overall treatment method for pressure ulcers patients. Smart beds though initially may be expensive for the people but for its best quality care can easily penetrate in the market and makes its niche (Toro-Jarrín, Ponce-Jaramillo & Güemes-Castorena, 2016). The business idea is highly feasible as it reduces the healing time of the bed ridden ulcers patients and also is the most economical approach. Therefore, the proposed business idea will help in providing maximum productivity and profitability in the long-run.
References
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Carayannis, E. G., Sindakis, S., & Walter, C. (2015). Business model innovation as lever of organizational sustainability. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 40(1), 85-104.
DaSilva, C. M., & Trkman, P. (2014). Business model: What it is and what it is not. Long range planning, 47(6), 379-389. (DaSilva &Trkman, 2014)
Foss, N. J., & Saebi, T. (2017). Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: how far have we come, and where should we go?. Journal of Management, 43(1), 200-227. (Foss &Saebi, 2017)
Güemes-Castorena, D., & Toro, M. A. (2015, August). Methodology for the integration of Business Model Canvas and technological road map. In Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2015 Portland International Conference on (pp. 41-52). IEEE.
Joyce, A., & Paquin, R. L. (2016). The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models. Journal of Cleaner Production, 135, 1474-1486.
Klang, D., Wallnöfer, M., &Hacklin, F. (2014). The business model paradox: A systematic review and exploration of antecedents. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(4), 454-478.
Metallo, C., Agrifoglio, R., Schiavone, F., & Mueller, J. (2018). Understanding business model in the Internet of Things industry. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
Palattella, M. R., Dohler, M., Grieco, A., Rizzo, G., Torsner, J., Engel, T., & Ladid, L. (2016). Internet of things in the 5G era: Enablers, architecture, and business models. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 34(3), 510-527.
Saebi, T., & Foss, N. J. (2015). Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal, 33(3), 201-213.
Sarooghi, H., Libaers, D., & Burkemper, A. (2015). Examining the relationship between creativity and innovation: A meta-analysis of organizational, cultural, and environmental factors. Journal of business venturing, 30(5), 714-731.
Schaltegger, S., Hansen, E. G., &Lüdeke-Freund, F. (2016). Business models for sustainability: Origins, present research, and future avenues.
Souto, J. E. (2015). Business model innovation and business concept innovation as the context of incremental innovation and radical innovation. Tourism Management, 51, 142-155.
Toro-Jarrín, M. A., Ponce-Jaramillo, I. E., &Güemes-Castorena, D. (2016). Methodology for the of building process integration of Business Model Canvas and Technological Roadmap. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 110, 213-225.
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