PhD student Jolien Vos was awarded the Best PhD Project Award for her paper, ‘Care Navigation in Older People with Multimorbidity – Feasibility and Acceptability of using ICT’ at this year’s International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE). The conference brought together experts in Computer Science and Health Sciences in Rome (Italy) on 21st and 22nd April 2016.
The conference included keynotes on ‘Can ICT Assist Learning and Living’ (by Prof. Margaret Ross) and ‘Senior Homo Digitalis’ (by Prof. Hubert Österle), together with oral sessions and poster presentations on topics such as: Telemedicine and e-Health; Monitoring, Accessibility and User Interfaces; Robotics and Devices for Independent Living and HCI for Ageing Populations. The conference addressed current challenges such as the lack of integrated systems, ethical considerations of technology in health and social care and the risks and dangers of technology in this setting.
Jolien’s PhD takes place in the area of Digital Health and Social Care and her full paper on care navigation in older 
people with multimorbidity was accepted for the Doctoral Consortium. Papers and presentations for the Consortium were reviewed and scored by the independent advisory board. At the end of the presentation, a general discussion and reflection was held with the doctoral student and the members of the advisory board. Having constructive discussion with senior leaders in the field and receiving their feedback provided a wonderful and invaluable opportunity for Jolien and other doctoral candidates. The paper will be included in the list of conference best papers and invited for an extended and revised version publication in a book or journal of the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information Control and Communication (INSTICC).
By Jolien Vos