PHealth Service Deployment Methodology: A Case Study

It has been proved that information and communication technology (ICT) solutions for personalized health (PHealth) and ambient assisted living (AAL) can support people in their daily life activities. Several solutions have been demonstrated to empower different levels of services through seamless data acquisition and specific users' interaction modalities. Usually services usability and accessibility are handled in the design process and are validated with small users' groups. Moreover, while service design and systems development have been extensively described in literature, service deployment methodologies are not properly addressed and documented. Proper reference guidelines are also missing. The most common methodologies like unified process (UP) or ICONX can cover only the design and the development of PHealth services without a clear description on the following phases such as deployment, service provision and maintenance. These phases present several risks to be taken into account right from the beginning of the implementation of PHealth or AAL services. This paper focuses on the description of a structured methodology to deploy PHealth services and how this process can be supported by integrated software routines and adapting the UP framework in particular the "Transition phase."