The Importance of Including Qualitative Data in Technology Evaluation - Investigating the Technology Implementation Evaluation Score (TIES)

The recent increase in welfare technology implementation calls for the development of evaluation methods. Previous research has identified the need for a coherent evaluation model to create indicators that combine individual, economic and organizational dimensions. The Technology Implementation Evaluation Score (TIES) works in this way. It provides a score by combining statistical and monetary data (quantitative data) with patient and caregiver opinions (qualitative data). This paper aims to investigate the effects of including qualitative data on the outcome of the TIES model, compared to only using quantitative data. Various combinations of inputs are investigated by performing a sensitivity analysis using extreme value scenarios. The result shows that the TIES model is more affected by the number of data types created and the weight attached to each input than the data used as inputs. The assessment shows that the model is appropriately constructed for the current home care case.